


... In a Hopeless Place

by 1lostone



Series: Into the Sky [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Assisted Suicide, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic-typical violence, DID YOU SEE THAT I MENTIONED VIOLENCE?!, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, First Time, First Time Falling In Love, Minor Character Death, POV First Person, Panic Attacks, Please believe me when I say angst, Show-typical violence, Suicidal Thoughts, The Monroe in this story is NOT a certain well-loved character whose name is Biblical in nature!, Well... I say "happy"., disturbing imagery, game-typical violence, i blame jlm for everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:48:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 74,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4300149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ASZ gave Carl and his family a  sense of security. Of home. Of community.</p><p> </p><p>It was amazing how quickly everything could go to shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Episode One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jlm121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlm121/gifts).



> **I cannot stress this enough- PLEASE READ THE TAGS.** Normally I'm squicky on spoilers for fic, but I felt it important enough to break my rule and tag the shit out of this. There is a LOT of darkness before they find any light. I modeled this very heavily off of the game with all of the gut punches therein, so expect episode end cliffies. That being said, it's also Carl and Clem's story. Those crazy kids.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This whole story is based on an aged-up early 20s fanart of Clem that I saw on tumblr. Here is the link. Check it out- they're fantastic. [ http://bembiann.tumblr.com/post/119608265411/keep-that-hair-short-by-bembiann-keep-that ](http://bembiann.tumblr.com/post/119608265411/keep-that-hair-short-by-bembiann-keep-that)

It’s always easy to play the “what if” game when things become so catastrophically fucked that every decision you make causes some other shitty thing to happen. You’ve probably been there. Or maybe not. What the fuck do I know?  

 

All I can say as I lie there with everything I know in flames around me is... Clem was right.  She was so, so right.

 

God, I’m just. I’m just so fucking _sorry_.

 

****

**Ten Hours Earlier....**

 

“Oh, bullshit! Carl Grimes, you are so full of shit your eyes are brown.”

 

Listening to Clem cuss is still one of the funniest damn things in the world. I make it my business to make it happen at least once a day if possible. Sometimes I think she does it just to humor me, but it’s just so damn cute.  

 

Clem is this itty bitty thing. Even in the car’s passenger seat, she’s curled up against the side door and there’s still a good half of the seat left. Not that I’m trying to be sexist or anything, because she’s also more wicked with a knife (Or an awl. Or a machete. Or a hatchet.) than anyone I’ve ever met... except maybe, Daryl, but physically it looks like a heavy gust of wind will blow her right over.  Dad says it’s because she was pretty malnourished when she was a kid. But she’s tiny. Maybe 5 feet nothin’ if she’s wearing her boots. Carol and Michonne have left their marks on her though, just as much as Dad and Daryl have done, cuz she’s strong. I’ve got a foot or so on her and half the time I’m afraid I’ll accidentally break her.

 

“No! I’m not bullshitting you. Buck freakin’ naked. He’s standing there with his jeans around his ankles and the walker is just kind of slumped over,  you know how they twitch a little right after?”

 

Clem nodded, still with this suspicious look on her face, like she’s just waiting for the punchline.  Her light brown eyes crinkle with her wide grin, and I feel my heart flip over in my chest. I make sure to concentrate on the road. The snow is falling just enough that we’ll end up in a ditch if I’m not careful.

 

“Yeah, so Daryl just looks from him, to the walker, to me and says... ‘Shit, son,’ scratches his head and then says ‘I’m not exactly sure what he killed the walker with.”

 

Clem’s laugh is low, and sexy as fuck, and god if nothing else, I know I’m probably the best goddamn actor in whatever is left of the United States, ‘cuz she still doesn’t know how I feel about her.

 

You’d think that after everything we’ve been through I’d be able to grow a pair and just tell her.

 

Yeah right.  

 

Telling her would mess up our friendship.  Telling her would make her feel awkward, and she’d pull away from ... just no. Nope. Better not to rock the boat.

 

My dad thinks I’m nuts. Daryl thinks I’m nuts. _Eugene_ thinks I’m nuts.  

 

About three years ago, and I remember this extremely well cuz it was my nineteenth birthday, I was stretched out on my bed, with music on, and a pillow over my head and could still hear them going at it.  Clem had come up and scared the bejesus out of me since she knew I couldn’t hear anything, and with the background of my dad’s and his partner’s moans and their headboard knocking against their bedroom wall, we decided it was time to fucking move out.

 

We got our own place not too long after. It had two bedrooms, was furnished in post-apocalypse chic, and I had never been happier. We lived in the same block of apartments as Eugene and Tara, and fortunately Clem said she was too busy to date. Oh darn. But she was pretty busy. She was one of our head nurses.  We had a vet, a podiatrist, and the two doctors Alexandria had started out with. She’d done everything from cut off someone’s limb to successfully give women c-sections. If I ever had some kind of life-threatening illness, she’d be the one to save me. In fact that was why we were here now. I’d begged her to go on a run with me. It had been awhile since she’d been out, and she’d been getting a little twitchy.

 

I turned left at the interstate and slowed down. We’d have just enough gas to get there.  

 

“Rick’s gonna be pretty pleased at our haul.”

 

I nodded.  “I wish we coulda gone for that liquor store, but you’re right. It was too overrun.”

 

“It could clear out though. You never know.”

 

True. Liquor was not exactly a staple these days, but it made you pretty damn popular when you came back with it. “Yeah? You think it’s worth trying to----”

 

I hit the brakes so hard that the car slid on the wet road, sliding to a stop at the top of a small hill.  I’d been on this hill hundreds of times in the seven years that we first found Alexandria. I’d always sort of taken it for granted, either by vehicle or by foot when I got to the top, I could look down into the trenches and at the rusted metal gates and feel a sense of... safety.

 

What I saw now had to be a joke. I threw the car in park and rubbed my eyes, the dark pull of panic beginning to claw its way up my throat.

 

Clem grabbed my wrist, her nails almost breaking the skin. It was that, more than anything that convinced me that what I was seeing was real.

 

Walkers.  Hundreds of them. Maybe even over a thousand, spread as far as I could see. Where the Zone had once stood was now just chaos. A semi had jackknifed into one of the sides, taking the wall with it. Walkers staggered over the ruined wall, using it as a bridge into the inside of the ASZ.   Even through the light snow, it was a fairly clear day, and the clang of the emergency bell drifted out to us, even here.  

 

“Oh shit oh fuck oh shit oh fuck what. What do we... do?” My voice hadn’t cracked like that since I was about fifteen, but I gave absolutely no fucks about what I sounded like. How could I when everything was so messed up? “Jude and my dad and Daryl.. Clem, everyone’s _home_!”

 

“Stop.” Clem’s hand grabbed onto my chin and wrenched my face around to hers. She still wore that nasty old hat and her eyes were narrowed as she stared at me. “So help me god, Carl. Calm. Down. Drive the car back, and stash it in the woods.  Do it quietly before any of them notice us.” She muttered something under her breath about the clang being louder than the squeal of the breaks but I didn’t catch all of it.

 

My hands shook and for a second my stomach went liquid, rolling. “Okay. I...” I forced myself to take a breath. Then another, then I did as Clem ordered, going slowly.  There weren’t any walkers behind us. I don’t know how they didn’t notice us with the incredibly stupid way I’d screeched the car to a halt (Suddenly Clem’s mutterings made sense), but at this point I’d take what I could get. I backed up a few feet, then whipped the wheel to the side, bumping uncomfortably over the ground.

 

The car rolled to a stop in some trees. There wasn’t much cover, but it was back a little bit from the road. If we were lucky, it would still be here after we ... “ I couldn’t help the tears that sprung to my eyes.  “It’s bad. That’s so, so bad.” Worse than the prison.

 

“Yeah, it is, but I can get us in. You really need to calm down, though.” She hugged me, and I clung to her for just a second, terrified out of my damn mind. “You know that we’re all supposed to meet at Daryl’s cabin if we get separated. All our people know that, Carl. They’re not dumb, but at the same token this had to have happened a couple of hours ago, so... so it might be.. rough.”

 

I nodded, leaned back and attempted to get my shit together. “Yeah.” I took a shaky breath. “Yeah, Clem. What’s the plan?”

 

“Damnit, I wish Rick hadn’t gotten those damn tunnels filled. We could go in that way. Crap. Okay, well, then we’re going to have to go through them.” Clem slid out of the car.

 

I blinked, then wondered if I heard her right.  Granted, I had only taken a quick look but it looked like there were eight hundred, or more walkers out there. She couldn’t possibly mean...

 

Clem thunked her hand on the hood and I jumped. It only took a minute to roll up the windows- we never locked the doors in case we needed a quick getaway- and slide out of the seat to stand beside her.  I looked down at her, watched her take off her cap, run her fingers through her shock of curly hair, and put her ball cap back on.  A simple gesture, something I’d seen a thousand times. I don’t know why it seemed so important now. I was ... I think I might have been in shock. Crazy that after everything I’d done and seen I could be, but there ya go.  

 

“Okay. We’re gonna cover ourselves in walker guts. So many that none of your own skin shows. It confuses their scent somehow.”

 

“Yeah, my dad and Glenn did it a long time ago.” I’d heard that story so often over campfires that it was almost like a fairy tale. After Glenn had died, the stories of everything he’d done for all of them had come out often enough so that little Judith wouldn’t forget him.

 

“You ever done it?”

 

“Well, no...”

 

“Then hush and listen to me. That’s a long damn way to walk, and you’re gonna want to rush. You can’t. You have to go slowly, and you have to be ready for shit to go wrong. It looks like someone attacked us, and they could still be there. There could be snipers.”

 

I blinked again, my heartbeat going a little crazy. Attacked? Snipers? Fuck, I’d not even thought about that.

 

I had a survival knife that I’d had for awhile. Its blade was almost as long as my arm, and had the wickedly serrated edge for part of it, and an absolutely lethal knife edge for the rest. The grip was camo, wrapped in a leather bit that kept it from slipping if my hand got sweaty.  Daryl called it a Rambo knife, and the thought of Daryl, of him being... no. _No_.  Not that. _Please._  I stripped my backpack down to just what I’d need if we had to make a run for it: extra weapons, my first aid kit, and a couple of lighters. I had my two Beretta M9s with several mags of ammo and quickly adjusted my holsters and the straps with the ease of long practice, making sure that nothing would impede my draw.

 

Glenn, Eugene and Dad had figured out how to make rounds- I didn’t really understand the whole process, but for all of us carrying that particular type of handgun, ammo was no longer a problem. Something about all the military called out, and looting an armory or something- I don’t know. Either way, we had a bunch of bullets.  We didn’t make them very quickly, but since the armory had been going for almost two years, we’d had plenty stockpiled.  Maggie had seen to that, making sure that Glenn’s last idea had gone off with as few hitches as possible.

 

For Clem’s twenty-first birthday, Rick and Daryl, with help from Eugene, had brought her a gun. It was... well, kind of... look. If I was the type of guy that got a hard-on for guns, this would be the weapon that did it. It was a short barreled shotgun, oiled and stained so there was no flash to give her away. There had been some fancy scrollwork on it, and an artistic carving of her name: Clementine. I think they’d modified it so that it would hold three rounds, plus the one in the chamber.  When she used it, she didn’t miss. She also had a backup Baretta, and a machete that she kept in a sheath on her back. The handle of the knife stuck up over her shoulder, and she and Carol had sewn a backpack that wouldn’t interfere with her draw.  She had her trusty awl at her waist, and had a smaller knife she kept on her thigh. She preferred a closer kill if it was for walkers.  The guns were for the human assholes.

 

Once we had made sure we had about as many weapons that we could hold, Clem and I started hiking out towards the ASZ. Over the crest of the hill it was obvious that the semi had been carrying walkers for some reason (something that made my stomach churn with terror), because some of them were still stumbling inside of it, and falling out before rising and walking towards the noise.  There were several that were being called in from the surrounding area though, and those are the ones we got behind.

 

Clem whistled, and when three turned towards us, she jumped right in, kicking the closest in the knee and killing it with a sharp jab to the head, and moving towards the other before I had even gotten to my first.

 

I was moving too slow. I had to focus, or I was gonna get us killed.

 

Walker guts smelled about as well as you expected, but it had this really weird consistency, like jelly with bits of fruit in it. Fruit. Yeah, right. I smeared it in my hair, on my face, and all over my front. I got my crotch, the arms of my leather coat, and my jeans. I even spread it on my boots.  When I turned to  Clem, only her eyes peeped out of me from the macabre sight, pale brown and blinking at me with worry. She did my back, and I did hers, brushing over her rear end as clinically as I knew how, and then we were good to go.

 

“The snow might be a problem.”

 

I hadn’t even thought of that. Jesus, I was useless. I watched as Clem bent down and wrapped several feet of intestine around her wrist, on her non-dominant hand, so that it wouldn’t get in her way.

 

“We can cut it open if we need more later.”

 

Yum. Sounded... ugh. Still, if it worked, I’d do any goddamn thing she told me to and be grateful for the suggestion. Christ knew that I wasn’t exactly coming up with anything here.

 

“You ready? Remember, Slow. Follow my lead, and ... just don’t panic okay?” Clem shut her eyes for a second, and I wanted to touch her. Comfort her somehow. There were old memories on her face, and I knew that whatever was going through her mind right now wasn’t good.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay, go.”

 

The walk towards the ASZ was... well imagine the most terrifying thing you’ve ever done. Then ramp up that adrenaline by about three billion, then force yourself not to react to any of that adrenaline by walking so slowly that it was barely like moving.  It was the weirdest fucking thing. Walkers would bump into me, walk in-between Clem and I, and not even realize we were human. The walker guts were working- and the snow didn’t seem to be affecting anything, although if it fell much harder we’d be in deep shit. The mile walk took us easily 45 minutes, but time was weird. I kept thinking of my sister, of her first tooth, the first time she walked by herself, the first time she had me-- _me_ , Not my dad or his partner-- show her how to shoot.  

 

The fact that no human was stopping us from our grim trek forward was more terrifying than any of that. If our guards had been on duty, then we would have been stopped going in. Covered in blood or not, we were very obviously human. Our guys were good enough to know the difference.

 

Clem touched my arm, and I jumped, looking at her. She jerked her head towards the semi and I could see the bloody skeletons still tied to the roof that pretty much confirmed our suspicions that this was on purpose.  Those walkers had been packed in there like fish in a barrel, and they’d killed someone to do it.

 

Fuck.

 

From here we could see that three sections of the wall had been taken down, and the smoke was a lot more obvious. This was more than a housefire, because I could feel the heat from the flames from here.  

 

We crossed over the rusted, metal gate and ...

 

“Oh god,” Clem whispered.

 

I think for a second my mind refused to make sense out of what I was seeing. Like it was protecting me.  Any conception of ‘home’ or ‘safety’ was obliterated. People that I had spent seven years with, people I’d fought with,  and laughed and went on runs and ate with were lying dead around us, strewn about like Judith’s legos when she had a tantrum.  

 

Maggie, who had let her hair grow out after Glenn was killed, was lying half on a rise, half off. She was missing the bottom half of her body, her hair wrapped in the fist of a walker that looked terrifyingly like my old friend Angelica. It was still feeding.

 

Abraham was next to her. It was obvious that they had tried to make it to the watch towers. Abraham still held his sniper rifle. His face was gone, but he was easily enough to identify by the army gear he still wore, even after all these years.  There were two other fresh walkers that were crawling towards us. The fresh ones were fast, and still had some of their living selves’ dexterity.  On autopilot I stabbed Maggie in the head, then took out the two walkers before they moved very far.  Reflex and muscle memory was my friend here.  I didn’t need to do anything to Abraham. There wasn’t enough of his brain left to reanimate.

 

Clem darted forward and around me, and took out three before I could even blink. That left our little corner unnoticed by any walker activity, and I grabbed her arm.

 

“We’re still plenty coated with walker guts, so we should be able to make it to my Dad’s.”

 

“Right. Let’s go.”

 

I tried not to look, and at the same time, couldn’t help but stare at everything as we made our careful way up Maple and over towards 2nd street, where the house Daryl had surprised my dad with so long ago stood.  We passed no one alive, and with each step towards their house, I grew more and more certain that Clem and I were the only two people living in the whole place. At the same time, I tried not to believe it, like I could bargain my way out of this.

 

I saw Samuel from two houses down, dead in the street, and Jamie who lived below Clem and I feeding contentedly on an older woman. I was afraid it was Henrietta, but there wasn’t enough left  to really tell. For awhile, Henrietta had babysat Judith, pleased to have a little girl around since her grandchildren had all died. It made my throat thick, and it hurt to swallow. That could have been the smoke, though.  Fires burned indiscriminately, houses burning down to embers, walkers on fire, smoke a thick cloud over our heads.  

 

“I think those were set deliberately.” My whisper startled Clem a little and she looked around, nodding.  It looked like just enough had been set on fire to get people to run out of their houses into the chaos.

 

We turned the corner, still moving carefully and quietly when Clementine stopped short. The medical center’s strobe was going off, and I knew in an instant what she wanted to do.

 

“No. No fucking way. We stay together.”

 

“It’s right here. We can just go in, grab what we’ll need, and go. It doesn’t make any sense to backtrack, Carl!”

 

“The strobe is on! You know what that means better than I do!”

 

Clem’s jaw jutted out, stubbornly, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t know how important some of that medicine is going to be. I am thinking of what comes after! There could be people alive there!”

 

“There could be people alive IN MY DAD’S HOUSE!”

 

Several walkers turned, noticing us suddenly as they heard the sound of my voice.

 

Shit. Stupid.  I swore then whirled to take the five of them out, darting over to an alley by the back door of the med center and waiting until they shuffled in, stabbing them one by one. I had to wipe the grip of my knife on my shirt because it had become so slippery. By the time I got back to where I left Clem... there was no sign of her.

 

“Clem!” I tried whisper-shouting, but she didn’t answer.

 

I shut my eyes for a second, overwhelmed with such a bright burst of anger that it scared me.

 

How fucking dare her.

 

No, wait. Clem’s anything but stupid. She wouldn’t try to clear a building by herself... would she? No, she probably just went on to my dad’s and I didn’t see her go from where I was standing.  I tried to ignore the little voice that insisted it was fucking weird that she didn’t help me with the walkers, or that she was so insistent on getting what she could from medical.

 

She wouldn’t abandon my family... would she? She was _part_ of that family.

 

I opened my eye only to see a glimpse of her baseball cap from the second story window.

 

It hurt. Did she really expect me to wait? When I... When I didn’t know if my... No. Fine. Fuck her.

 

“Fuck you, Clem.” I turned and slowly walked the rest of the way to my parent’s house, feeling the whole way like I was about to cry like some utter and complete dumbass.  I almost turned back twice, but couldn’t in the end. She’d made her decision.

 

I just had to know. I just had to know, and then I’d go back for her.

 

I heard a muffled grunt, and a clank of something against concrete and turned to look by Mr. Lebbowitz’s house, not quite believing my eyes.

 

Michonne stood there, a circle of walkers dead around her.  It was incredible. She moved like some sort of machine. I mean, I’d seen her fight before of course, but nothing like this.  This Michonne was cold; an extension of the blade that she made so lethal.  Walkers were stacked around her like so much dead weight, some decapitated, some just cleaved through the head. I knew better than to interrupt her when she was like this, so I waited until she paused for a second, seeming to shake herself out of her fury. A few heads were  gnashing their jaws, and she calmly sliced them in half, making sure they were no longer lethal.

 

“Michonne.”  

 

Seeing her made the tiny spark of hope inside of me increase. If _she_ was alive, then there were others. There had to be.

 

“Oh Christ. You’re here.” She limped over to me, hugging me hard.  We were both covered in blood, but I didn’t care. She stepped back, so she could look at my face.

 

“Clem?”

 

I opened my mouth to answer, but Michonne must have seen something in my face because hers went blank, wiped clear of emotion.  “Come on,” was all she said, and I did. We were close enough to abandon caution and run up the steps to my dad’s porch. Michonne fumbled for my arm, but I didn’t need the warning, staring at the closed door with my mouth opening in shock.

 

There was a crossbow sticking out of the door frame. Rosita’s head had been decapitated, but not killed. The eyes had gone milky and pale with death, and her mouth worked uselessly, with no vocal cords there to allow her to make sound. Her hair had been tied to the crossbow, and her head swayed slightly in the wind from the swirling snow.

 

Carved into her face were the words ‘No one home’.

 

I heard a sound, and felt Michonne’s nails skate slickly on the arm of my jacket and it was only then that I realized that the low, horrible, pain-filled sound was coming from me.

 

I jerked my arm out of Michonne’s grip, using the momentum to shoulder my way inside the house.... only to stop, so suddenly that Michonne bumped into my back.

 

“Oh no,” Michonne’s whisper was probably as involuntary as the moan I could still feel in my esophagus.

 

Rosita’s head thumped gently against the door, the soft thud...thud... thud... a counterpart to my own thudding heart.  She snapped at me, and on autopilot, I stabbed her in the head, still staring at what had once been my dad and Daryl’s living room. There were four walkers inside my house. Someone had captured them by sticking a shattered piece of wood through them, effectively sticking them to the floor.  The stick was burning. It looked like someone who had let a cigarette burn much too long, and all that was left was the ghost of ashes. Eventually that stick would be gone, and the walkers would be free.

 

I ignored the mess in the other part of the room, stabbing them each in the head, until they were quiet. It didn’t take very long, and it gave me something to do. Something other than thinking about what else was in the same place I’d stretch out after Daryl’s late-night dinners, crashing on that same couch. Eventually though I couldn’t hide from it any more.

 

They had tried to protect her until the end. I could see it, just from the way they were placed. Eugene had taken several rounds before one caught his brain. His body was between the door and the couch, like he’d planted himself there as a line of defense.

 

Tara was clutching someone small, dressed in a pink pair of overalls. I... I had to look away.  Both of the bodies had been slit from neck to navel. Blood had fountained around, covering everything. Tara had been watching something on tv. There was still popcorn spread around the couch.

 

I dropped to my knees, reaching towards the smaller body.

 

“Don’t.” Michonne’s voice was wrecked, and she grabbed me again, hugging me from behind.

 

“It might not be her.” My voice was just a hint of breath, like someone had punched me in the chest. Someone had.

 

“Carl...”  

 

The thump from upstairs caused both of us to freeze, before the same rage coursing through my body appeared on Michonne’s face. If there was someone left in this house, then they were going to die. There was no way that my dad or Daryl would have allowed this to happen if they were here.

 

Not Jude. Not my sister.  I was only aware that I was crying when the blood on my face dripped down off my nose onto my chin. I wiped my face absently with my arm, not even caring that I was basically smearing more blood on my skin, and stood up.

 

The thump came again, and I realized it was coming from my old room.  Dad had kept the bed there, but had emptied the dresser and closet. We had used it as storage for everything that we wanted to keep but didn’t really have a place for. There was everything from those stupid garden gnomes to extra ammo and canned food crammed in there.

 

“My room,” I breathed. Michonne nodded and we slowly made our way up the stairs.  We both sucked in a quick breath then erupted into action.

 

Michonne slammed open the door, and an immediate shot caused both of us to hit the floor. I had my own gun out and had aimed when I heard a scream of “CARL!” and someone tiny threw herself into my arms and oh. Oh my god she was alive Judith was alive and it was incredible and impossible and I couldn’t stop crying, clutching her to me so hard that by the time time resumed to something normal I was afraid I might have hurt her.

 

“Carl, we gotta finish checking the house and go.”

 

Yeah.  I got my shit together and stood back up. Michonne had checked Jude’s room while I made an idiot out of myself, and the quick jerk of her head showed me that it was empty.

 

I took Judith to her room and helped her grab a few things, still shaky on my feet.

 

“Carl? Where’s Daddy? Where’s Dad?”

 

“Not sure, Jude. Come on though, we have to go.”

 

“What about Clem?”

 

That stopped me cold. She wasn’t here. I let her go into a building by herself, and she wasn’t here. It was like being drenched with a bucket of cold water. I had been right... but so was Clem. What if Michonne, or Judith had been hurt? They could have bled out. And whatever the fuck we were heading into, meds were a fact of life. We’d need them wherever we ended up. God I’d just... let her go in there alone! Michonne’s ‘danger’ whistle jolted me into action.

 

I just shook my head. “Come on, we gotta hurry.”  I grabbed Judith’s emergency pack and took her gun to make sure it was chambered. She didn’t have the arm strength yet to get close enough to new walkers to kill them, and her shooting wasn’t completely terrible, so it was the safer of the two bets. The slug she put in the door jam spoke to that.

 

It was heavy, but not too heavy. She’d be able to handle it.  I made her change into jeans and put her feet in the small motorcycle boots that would keep her feet warm. The jacket wasn’t the best, but it was better than nothing. I shoved her hair under a skicap, helped her into the backpack, and we met Michonne in the hallway.  She’d hauled up one of the walkers and Judith gagged as we covered her and Michonne in its insides. Judith throwing up didn’t smell any worse than the corpse guts. We’d taken her outside before, but always heavily protected. It was a fine line between learning to protect herself, and understanding that her world wasn’t real inside of the walls of the ASZ. Now, I was glad my dad had insisted on it.

 

“You take her.”

 

Yeah. Judith didn’t need to see that shit in the living room. Hell, I didn’t need to see that shit. I picked Judith up and forced her face into my chest, cupping the back of her head.  “Close your eyes and don’t look, sweet pea.”

 

She gulped loudly, and down the stairs we went.

 

Michonne walked slowly, me right behind her. We were in the middle of the zone, so we had to make our way back past medical and to the gate.  

 

“Clem’s in medical.”

 

“By her _self_?” Even in a whisper, Michonne’s disapproval was pretty clear. I didn’t need the reminder. Her just knowing was bad enough. I stumbled on the pavement, tripping over a dead walker, shame thick in my throat.

 

It wasn’t a walker.

 

We both heard the sound at the same time.  Michonne sprung forward, but he was too fast. I don’t know if he thought we were walkers, or if he was aiming for us because we were alive, and he knew he was done. I vaguely recognized him from what felt like a hundred years ago.

 

Douglas Monroe.

 

Michonne tried to take it. I tried to duck. With Jude in my arms, I couldn’t move as quickly as before. I put my body between her and the gun, but my center of gravity was off.

 

There was a white flash and I felt a sting on my face. For a second, I didn’t think it was that bad. Felt a bit like a biting fly, or someone flicking me on my eyelid. I didn’t feel pain. I didn’t feel anything.  From far away, I thought I heard a scream, but it might have just been the clang of the fire station alarm.  I don’t know.  Everything whirled, tilted.

 

It took hours to hit the ground. It was cold. The dirty snow was pink, then red, and I wanted to wipe my face, but I couldn’t.

 

One blink, and I saw Judith turn and shoot the man behind us.

 

One blink, slower this time, and I saw the filthy feet of the walkers, drawn to us by all the commotion.  I heard the pounding of boots, and Clem was on her knees in front of me, face very, very pale.

 

A thought: I fucked up.  I fucked this up so bad.  

 

I tried to reach up for her. Wanted to touch her face, to feel her skin, even covered as it was in gore. I didn’t care.  I could hear Judith screaming my name, and wanted to tell her to shut up, to be quiet; it wasn’t safe. My body was too heavy to move.... almost too heavy to speak. But I forced myself. I couldn’t see her anymore. Everything was red, and dark. I felt something warm at my fingers and realized she had done what I couldn’t, grabbing my hand and holding it with her own.

 

“--- _Sorry_.”

 

The last thing I saw before I checked out were the tears tracking through the blood on her face, shining in the light from the flames.

 


	2. Episode Two

My face was on fire.

 

I _howled_ on instinct- reaction to the agony. There was. There was a reason I shouldn’t make noise, something... but I didn’t care. I opened my eyes, no my eye, something. Something _wasn’t right_ and saw a grim faced Clem shove a leather strap between my teeth.

 

“You bite, but you shut. Up. Or they’ll be here to finish the goddamn job.”

 

I blinked and strained, trying to make my vision work properly.  There was still pain though, so I did what she told me; bit and bit and bit, trying not to scream.  I could see her with a syringe, and  watched as she got the air bubbles out before injecting me near my temple.

 

Immediately, some of the agony went away, leaving me feeling like I was floating around in cotton wool. I could still feel what she was doing, and I still couldnt see out of the right side of my face, and a slow sort of panic started to set in.  With the drug though, I couldn’t do much in reaction.

 

“The camp?”

 

“Michonne and Judith are on watch. I think we’re far enough from the herd that was pulled in.” I felt her fingers against my face, lifting something and oh.

 

“Is that my eye?”

 

Her gaze centered on my own. “Yes. Shut up. Close your eyes.”

 

I tilted my head, frowning, which was dumb. The pain was still there, and it hit me like a fist. “No. Tell me.”

 

She sighed, and I realized that I was tied to something.  

 

“Clem.”

 

My voice cracked. I was begging and she knew it. Her face showed her own agony for a minute, before she pushed it away. I knew that tactic. It was the same thing I had been doing for the past few minutes, resolutely refusing to think about the fact that my fucking _eye_ was fucking _gone_.

 

She took a deep, shaky breath.  “Okay, but only because I need that morphine to be working all the way before we do this.  You were shot, Carl. The bullet grazed your eye, and your temple, and your ear. The eye is the worst though. I. I don’t think I can save it.”  She looked down, then back up at me, her own light brown gaze swimming with tears. “I’m sorry. I just don’t see how it’s possible. The whole... _eye_ is ruptured, the uh. The orbital or the zygo... zygomatic. I think. Shit. Shit,  Michael had me on mostly fractures, and stitching up cuts and that sort of stuff and I’m not sure what I’m doing and oh god, Carl. Your _eye_.” Her voice cracked, and the tears spilled off her face.

 

Somehow, Clem losing her shit was scarier than anything else I’d seen so far today. I think I’d seen her cry maybe three times, in all the years I’d known her.  “Clem. It’s okay. You’ll do your best, and we’ll be fine.” Stupid, useless platitudes, but it was all I had. “I trust you.”

 

I shut my eyes again, and waited patiently. I heard her sniff wetly, and the shaky breath.  “You’ve got bandages on your face, but the eye was bleeding through them. I. I don’t think it’s gonna be able to be saved.” She was repeating herself but the floaty feeling kept me from caring. Her voice was calming, even if her words weren’t.  I felt her fingers against my face again, and something pulling. I thought my face twitched but I wasn’t sure.

 

“The ... oh, damn. I don’t remember all the parts to your eye, but the whole thing is. Uh.” She gulped. “In half. It’s not all the way in the socket, and that’s me tying it off. I’m gonna have to take it, Carl. God, I’m so sorry.”  

 

“My eye isn’t in its socket?” I heard softer noises, footsteps and Michonne low voice talking calmly to Judith coming from outside.

 

“Uh. No. It was sort of hanging out on your cheek, but Judith was freaking so I shoved it back in and stuck some bandages on your head.”

 

I felt the heat of something near my face and there was a small ‘ _hsssst_ ’ sound that made my stomach turn unpleasantly. There was a poke, and  bunch of fluid soaked my cheek, all the way down to my chin.  The floaty feeling I’d been enjoying until then dissipated a little.  I felt something soft against where my eye had been. Like a cloth? I didn’t want to open my eyes... my _eye_ to check.

 

“I’m cleaning up the blood, so I can stitch it.” Her fingers sliding against the blood on my cheek, the trail of something like thread against my face. She worked in silence. The only sound in the little garage was the fire popping in the little woodburning stove as logs settled. I doubted either of them had wanted a big fire, not with god knows what on our doorstep.

 

I don’t know how long I sat there, feeling her hands on my face. Long enough for the drug to start to wear off. I was sleepy, of all things. The pain was still somewhat dulled, but everything throbbed.  There was a hiss of something hitting the fire, and I had a horrible suspicion of what that was. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to ask though.

 

“Okay, Carl. Some padding for the socket, and I’ll wrap everything up. I’m sorry I had to tie you up. Getting you out of there, bleeding like you were, was hard.”

 

“How?”

 

I wasn’t sure if I said the word, or just slurred it. Exhaustion was hard to ignore. I opened my eye, blinking at the small garage. My dad and Daryl had used this place. Sometimes, probably just to get away from all of us. A vacation, maybe. Sometimes, they used it for runs, but I knew they kept the food and most of the supplies buried under the floor so any other looters wouldn’t take what they’d collected if they stumbled upon this place.

 

“Me and Michonne had to drag you. You were out of it, so we could, barely. Judith walked right in front of us. She’s ... she’s tough. But. But, she’s not talking much, Carl. Michonne is keeping an eye on her while I fix you up, and I think if you’re not covered in blood it will do a lot to help calm her down, but you’re gonna want to talk to her. Soon if you can.”

 

I blinked again, my eyelids no. Eye _lid_ heavy with sleep. The other one didn’t move. Or, if it did, I didn’t feel it. “‘Kay. Clem’tine, I’m sorry for not--”

 

“No.” Her voice was soft, but I shut up. I felt the tie holding my arms give, and realize that she had tied me an old chair, near a rickety card table that looked like a heavy sneeze would knock it over.  I rubbed my wrists, noticing that I was still covered in walker muck. Gross.  I wiped my hands as best I could until I couldn’t see anything on them and reached towards my face.

 

Clem grabbed by hands again. “No. Infection. I doused you in iodine, but.. just humor me okay? The cheek and your head’s still a bit swollen. I’ll check your bandages tomorrow, and--” She broke off with a yawn.

 

“It was Monroe, Clem.”  A long time ago, me ‘n’ Clem had caught him doing something really bad. I hadn’t really realized how shitty it was at the time. I mean, yeah, I knew raping was awful, horrible- my own close brush with it making me act like a complete idiot around Clem until I knew she was safe again, but the scope of forcing women, then forcing babies on them, then taking the babies so they could do it again... that was. God. It didn’t hit me until a few years later that Monroe had been so desperate to keep the human population up that he’d started a forced breeding program.  We busted him, and my dad had gotten involved.

 

“Revenge.  I plan on going back and double-checking for Rick and Daryl. I _will_ , Carl.  I. I’m sorry if--”

 

“No. You were right. Someone did need the medical stuff.” My smirk was wry, and Clem looked like she was going to cry for a second.  I leaned towards her for a hug, but missed. It shocked me.  

 

“Your uh, depth perception is going to be off. You’ll have to get used to it. Here. Let me help you to the bed, and you rest. We can figure all this out tomorrow.”

 

I was surprised how shaky I was. Clem got me settled in bed, and I felt the brush of her lips on my forehead. It took me two tries, but I was able to grab her arm before she got up. “Thank you.”

 

She forced a smile. “Don’t thank me, Carl. We’re not out of this yet.”

 

“We good?” Michonne’s voice seemed far off. I heard Judith’s boots clunking across the room, and felt her climb into bed with me. Her little body was shaking, and I held onto her as best I could. Before I could tell her everything would be okay though, I passed out again.

 

****

 

I don’t know what time it was, or hell, even how long it had been since I fell asleep. My face throbbed. Driving with Clem. ASZ attacked. Judith. Shot in the eye. My dad and Daryl gone. It all came in a rush of images, and I barely kept the whimper from escaping. I couldn’t help the little niggling certainty that ... this was punishment for something. I tried to push the thought aside, but it wouldn’t go far. My eye for... what. Not saving everyone? 

 

I listened to the quiet sounds of Clem and Michonne’s voices, and realized dimly that I was cold. Judith wasn’t sleeping next to me anymore. I smelled the smoke from our fire, and could smell the faint odors of come and nightsweat in my dad’s sheets, which yeah. That was pretty gross, and that was really sayin’ something considering I was covered with walker guts.  

 

Also, I had to pee like you would not believe.

 

I ignored my bladder for a second, trying to take in how I felt.  Woozy. Sore as fuck. My face felt... well, it felt like I had been fucking shot. Moving slowly, and remembering what Clem had said to me about depth perception, I managed to sit up and swing my legs down. I had to use the bed to pull myself up, and my good eye was crusty, so I carefully fished out the gunk with my nail. There was a lot of it, and I wondered if it had anything to do with what had happened to my face.

 

Still not thinking about that. Later. I'd freak _later_. I made my careful way towards the door, and had just barely undone the latches before I saw Michonne jump up and limp over to me. I sighed. Bathroom protocol. I’d almost forgotten. No one went anywhere by themselves, not even to take a piss.  She pushed open the door, and I walked heavily outside, in my bare feet. Yeah, that was dumb, but I really had to go.

 

“You gonna hold it for me?”

 

She snorted. “If I could see an itty bitty thing like that, maybe. But I’ll make sure a walker don’t grab it.”

 

“Hey, it’s cold!”

 

“Sure, honey. _Sure_ it is.”

 

The familiar banter made me feel better, and peeing made me feel a _lot_ better.  I looked around after I finished, making sure everything was tucked back in before I zipped up. Over the years, Dad and Rick had put a barbed wire fence around the garage, enough that it gave us some protection. The old trick of using cans and pieces of metal to provide a sound alarm hadn’t woken me up, so I assumed that distance made us safe enough from the walkers that were still milling around Alexandria.

 

“Come on. House meeting.”

 

Clem met us at the door, holding a towel, my boots, and a piece of homemade soap in her hand.  “You might as well clean up now.”

 

She disappeared, and Michonne let me make my careful way to the little creek behind the garage, and I ignored the way she sort of hovered, as though ready to grab me if I fell. It was... weird to have half of my vision skewed. I kept turning my head, almost over-compensating for the darkness on my right side.  The creek bubbled merrily. It wasn’t very deep, and there was enough of a current that it would pull away the soap and dreck, so we could still use the water later to drink.

 

“Come on, kiddo. Starin’ at it ain’t gonna make it warmer.”

 

Shit. It was October. This was gonna suck.  Still, I didn’t much like reeking of eau de walker, and I knew seeing me looking normal would help Judith, so a bath it was. Clem was right.

 

In the end, Michonne had to help me. The blood from the walkers had gone through my shirt near my throat. Or, maybe it was my own blood. Either way, my jeans and my shirts had to go. Everything stuck to me like a piece of tape, and I tried not to sound like a complete wuss for whimpering, although I don’t know what I was trying to hide from Michonne. She helped me get my clothes off, cutting them when I couldn’t get them off quickly enough for her sake.  I stipped the rest of them off and plopped down onto my knees in the little bit of water, keeping my shout of shock as my balls climbed up to my stomach at the freezing temperature behind my teeth, but barely.  

 

“You know she cleaned your weapons, and your backpack. Even your jacket and boots. She did hers, and Judith’s while you were out of it.”

 

“Not you?”

 

“You sayin’ I stink?”  Michonne’s voice was off, but maybe I was still half-asleep.

 

“I crashed not long after you and her was up all night, takin’ watch.”

 

I washed as quickly as I could, scrubbing hard enough that the movement gave me sickening headache, and let Michonne help me out again. She helped me with my hair, helped me keep the bandages as dry as we could, and got my back. Hell. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen my naked ass. Probably wouldn’t be the last. The towel had been a blanket at one point. It barely fit around my hips as I hustled into my boots and  into the house and by the woodstove as best I could, shivering.  Clem handed me some hot water to drink, my hands almost feeling too hot against the warmth of the cup. My head throbbed from the temperature changes. 

 

“Judith?” My sister looked at me, her big, blue eyes wide and sort of vacant. It worried me. My kid sister was tough, but she was also eight years old. She still believed in Santa, for Christ’s sake. “Hey. Feel better now that you’re all clean?”

 

Judith shrugged, looking down at her hands.  I hoped that I didn’t look too scary for her. The heat from the fire felt amazing, and once I could feel my hands again, I went ahead and got changed into the extra clothes. The jeans were my dad’s. I had to wear Daryl’s shirt though, because I was broader in the shoulders than my dad, although not as muscular as Daryl.  It was a red flannel, and it actually had sleeves. Ever since... hell. Probably since Hershel’s farm, Daryl had this kind of hilarious habit of cutting off all the sleeves on everything he owned, so my dad would notice the muscles on his arms. It worked, I guess. My dad sure noticed. Daryl noticed him noticing. Several years later, here we were.

 

And the memory of that, of them both, burned like bile in my throat. We hadn’t found their bodies, and there was a chance-- although yeah. It was a slight one. I wasn’t stupid. --A _chance_ that they would show up here. We’d used this as a meeting spot, and.  God. Please. _Please_. I took a deep breath and went back over by the stove “Okay. I’m uh.” I rubbed the top of my nose, flinching a little when it hurt. My whole face had a dull ache to it that I hoped went away sooner rather than later. I sat down besides Judith and lightly elbowed her. “Hey. Clem told me that you were badass getting me out of there.”

 

I smiled when Judith smirked a little. She ducked her head.  “I was really scared.”

 

“Everyone was really scared, sweet pea. But you did it, and I’m here now because you were such a brave girl.”

 

“I love you, Carl.”

 

I heard a soft sound from either Michonne or Clem and ignored it, bending down to hug my sister. “Love you too, Jude.” She hugged me back, her little stick arms tight around my waist.

 

I settled more comfortably, with my feet stretched out and my back against the wall.  “Okay so, House meeting?”

 

“Yeah.” Clem’s voice was low. She looked like shit. There were deep bruises under her eyes that spoke up loud and clear that she hadn’t gotten any sleep last night.

 

“What do we know?”

 

Michonne’s voice was low as she spoke. “It was a hit. An attack. From inside, from outside, coordinated so Rick couldn’t do shit. Monroe on the ground, he shot you, so it’s fairly easy to put together.” She sounded so pissed off that I was half afraid she’d go back with her katana and finish the job. “I saw Carol and Ty in the distance, but lost them. They’d gone towards the armory, but I wanted to make sure....” She sighed, wiping the sweat off her head. She still hadn’t bathed from before, and I knew her. She’d say that we could deal with the stench until she was damn well ready to clean up, and nothing would budge her.  Michonne was, after all, a tad bit stubborn.

 

“Okay. We can’t do much about that now, right? Not with just the four of us.” Clem’s voice was strong, even though she wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

 

“Right.” I sighed. “Supply-wise, we have what’s here, what we brought, and maybe the car, Clem. If it’s still there. We left a shitload of stuff.”

 

“I hope it’s not.”  

 

Even Judith looked up at that.

 

“I hope someone else got out and found it. That it’s keeping them alive.”

 

Oh goddamnit. My _own_ eyes filled with tears. “Yeah.” My voice was rough. “Yeah, that would be awesome.” Unless it was one of the fuckers that attacked us, but I didn’t bring that up.

 

“Can we stay here til daddy shows up?”

 

Michonne, Clem and I all looked at each other. They both nodded a little, and I relaxed. “Yeah. I think we should. As long as it’s safe. Someone else might be hurt,” I really didn’t want to think about that. “and need to recover before coming here.”

 

I sighed. If we were very, very lucky, Dad, Daryl, Carol and Ty would make it here. Unfortunately we were rarely so lucky. We made our own luck, and lately it had been pretty shitty.  

 

“Clem should crash. She looks like she’s going on fumes. Judith can organize our supplies, right?” Michonne looked over at Judith, whose shoulders straightened at having a job to do. “You know where your dad keeps the stash?”

 

Jude nodded. Clem opened her mouth to argue, but shut it, realizing that Judith’s demeanor had changed. GOne was the slightly vacant stare, and her little shoulders had straightened with a job to do.

 

“Carl, I need you to help me with something outside. One of the fences need a little bit of TLC.”

 

I kind of doubted that she really needed me, given that I could barely walk without help, but okay. 

 

“Wait, I need to check his... head.” Clem yawned. “Wait there a second while I get my stuff.”

 

Michonne nodded and reached over her shoulder for her katana. She grabbed the whetstone she kept in her bag and started cleaning it, the metallic _snickt snickt_ all at once bizarrely comforting, something we’d all heard a hundred times.

 

When Clem was ready for me, I sat back down on the rickety chair and put my hands in my lap, waiting. She unwrapped my head, saturating the rag in water and dabbing at the mess under my eye bandage.

 

“It hurt?”

 

“Not.. not a lot actually. Mostly my head, although when I move my good eye too fast, it pulls? Like the eye was still there.”

 

She hummed, dabbing gently at my eye socket, under the lid. “Yeah. That makes sense. I, removed the muscle after all. Headache?”

 

“A little. Nothing too bad. Don’t want any more of that shit you gave me earlier, _whheeewwwf._ It was potent.”

 

Her cheeks pinked a little, obvious against the greyness of her skin. “Yeah, I think I gave you too much. I just. Uh. Didn’t want to hurt you more.”

 

I slowly reached for her wrist, stopping her so she’d look right at me. If I didn’t move quickly, the depth perception wasn’t too fucked. Which was good if I planned on ever defending myself again. “Clem, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay? You got everybody out. You were smart, getting the meds and I’m sorry that I was a dick.”

 

Her lips trembled for a second, but she forced them into a straight line, pulling on her hand so she could continue cleaning. “You’re gonna feel weird, like your eye is still there. The muscles still work, so that’s probably where the headaches are coming from.  Eye strain, without the uh. Eye.”

 

She showed me the cloth, and I was shocked that there wasn’t a bunch of gunk there.  It was very faintly pink, and there was some of the same eye crusties that I had dug out of my other eye upon waking up, and that was it.  Weirdly, that made me feel better. I was expecting gushing blood and pus-filled infection.

 

“The stitches are good. I’ve gotten a lot better at them.” She snorted, and I knew what she was talking about; the dog bite on her arm from before she fell in with us.  “I’ll help you keep them clean, and we’ll take ‘em out in about a week, okay? You have two stitches on your eyelid, three on your temple, and uh, your ear is just missing a chunk of skin. Like a cat’s.”

 

I snorted. Maybe I wasn’t quite out of luck yet.  

 

She re-wrapped me, using new bandages.  She kept the old ones, and I knew she planned on sterilizing them so they could be reused.  Clem was a waste not, want not kind of girl.

 

“Okay. Good to go.”  She stared at me for a second, and I had the insane urge to lean forward and kiss her.  Before I could do anything so incredibly stupid, she took a step back and cleaned up her stuff, putting everything in her pack.  For the first time, I noticed that she had taken a duffel from the medcenter, and it was bulging with supplies.

 

“Get some rest, Okay? You look done in. Michonne, I’m ready. Are you?”

 

She was quiet for a beat before nodding yes. I looked, and Judith was busy going through the clothing that had been stashed here, folding it sort of an eight-year old's version of neatly and laying it out on top of a blanket she’d spread on the floor.

 

Walking was slightly better. I had probably slept at least eight hours, but it was hard to tell because of the snow clouds.  I made my careful way outside, noticing that Clem locked the door behind me, which I approved of since she was planning to sleep.  I heard her set the sound trap and knew that unless someone else drove into one of the concrete walls, she and Judith were as safe as possible, since there was only the one door and the windows had been boarded over a long time ago.

 

Michonne whistled to tell me she was on the left side of the garage, where the garage door would have been before dad and Daryl cemented over it. If I turned my whole head, my eye didn’t hurt. I hoped that would go away at some point- but refused to stress out over it. Either it would, and I’d be fine... ish... or it wouldn’t and I’d adapt.

 

I crossed the backyard, my boots crunching on the frozen ground. A look around showed no walkers in sight.  In fact, if I didn’t know what had gone on forty miles away, I’d say that it was damn peaceful.

 

I turned the corner and stopped short.

 

Michonne was sitting on the edge of a hole in the ground, her feet dangling over the edge. Her katana sat besides her, and the camp shovel was stuck in the larger pile of dirt to her left.

 

“What. What the actual _fuck_ , Michonne?!” Adrenaline spiked; my mind whirling.

 

“Head’s up.” She tossed something to me and in my shock, I fumbled before catching it.  Keys. Michonne looked thoughtful, then nodded. “You caught them. Even with...” she pointed to her eye and nodded approvingly.  “We were able to get to the pickup, and drove the rest of the way here. Have about a half a tank.” What she _didn’t_  do is answer my fucking question. She sighed, and looked down at the hole.

 

I took a step forward, answers that I refused to acknowledge starting to add up in my brain. She must have seen it on my face, because she smiled with a broken twist of her lips and removed the knife sheath on her thigh. Quick. Like removing a band-aid.

 

Under it was a perfectly formed bite.

 

“Oh. Oh _Jesus_.”  My voice broke; legs turning into water. I collapsed next to her, turning so I could see her fully with my good eye.

 

“Fucker got me right before you showed up.” She forced a sound that was something like a laugh, and something like a muted scream.

 

“Why didn’t you cut it off?” My voice was thready and I felt like I was going to puke. As much as my brain blared at me that no, this couldn’t be true, it was fucking _Michonne_ for Christ’s sake, everything else added up. The limp. The refusal to wash off- hiding the blood from a bite from our medic. The sweating- early bite fever.

 

She shrugged.  “First had to get Judith out, then we had to get you. By then it was too late.”

 

I surprised myself by tearing up. Michonne turned towards me, pulling me to her like she’d done a hundred times before. This was the same woman who’d pulled me out of my depression when we thought we’d lost Judith at the prison. Who’d kept me from hating my dad for decisions he had to make for all of us. Who’d taught me how to throw a knife. Who’d held me in a rusted out car after that sick fuck had had his hands all over me, had tried to rape me in front of my dad.

 

... Who’d kept me safe, even when she knew she was the walking dead.

 

I knew I was crying, hugging her hard, my whole body trembling with quiet sobs. She was no better, shaking against me, tears hot on my neck.  Even now, we couldn’t scream out our pain. It was so unfair.  Eventually though, she pulled away, wiping at her face. She cupped my cheeks gently, pulling my head up so that she could look directly at my eye. I felt her wipe the tears away from under my eye, and my heart absolutely broke.

 

“This shit’s gonna be hard, Carl.  You’re gonna want to give up. You promise me that you will stick with Clem, that you guys will keep that baby girl safe.” Even now, knowing that she was going to die, she was still protecting me. Protecting Judith.

 

“Of course. I don’t think I could leave her if I wanted to.”

 

“You’re gonna wanna act on that before you’re both thirty, you realize.” Her wry tone shocked a wet snort out of me, and she kissed my forehead, leaning hers against mine. “It’s gotta be soon. I can feel it. I think the cold makes the bite react faster, but the walkers react slower.”

 

She’d dug her own grave, probably while Clem stitched me up. She brought me out here to say goodbye, knowing I would give her a good death. I couldn’t fathom loving someone that much. Having that much trust. I’d had to kill my own mom, so that she wouldn’t turn. It absolutely fucking gutted me to know that I had to do it again, to this woman who’d been a mother, an aunt, an older sister and my friend. I would though. I wouldn’t let her turn, no more than I’d let my own mom turn into one of those things.

 

“Okay.” Her forehead felt inhumanly hot against mine.

 

“You tell your dad and that redneck of his that I love them.”  Her voice cracked, and I nodded, tears spilling out of my eye again. “And Judith and Clem.”

 

“Okay,” I whispered. I could feel my own lips trembling and bit them, refusing to break down again.

 

“And you, Carl. I-- I love you too baby boy.  You promise me. _Promise_ me that you’ll keep them safe.”

 

I couldn’t speak. My throat just didn’t work. I clutched her to me, still shaking, and it was awhile before I could get myself together enough to respond. “I promise, Michonne. And me too. I love you, too.” I could only manage a whisper through the blockage of tears in my throat, but I got it out. Hearing it made her entire body relax, like she knew that she could go, that she could trust my promise enough to let me take over.

 

She pulled her katana to her, and put my hands on it. Hers were shaking so hard that the sword jumped faintly in place. I understood. She couldn’t do it herself. She needed me, and trusted me, and it was time.  

 

I stood up slowly, and bit my lip again as I raised up the katana. It was lighter than I expected, and she’d made sure it was wickedly sharp.  Michonne jumped down into her grave and turned away from me, bending her neck, tilting her head a little so her braids wouldn’t get in the way. It placed her head over the edge of the grave, so I could deal with the head later.

 

Jesus. Jesus _fuck_. She thought of fuckin’ everything. Finally though, I couldn’t stall. Couldn’t take the chance. It had to be now, before I lost my nerve.

 

I closed my eye, and sucked in a deep breath. I opened it, aimed and swung hard. The blade flashed briefly in the sun.  Michonne's headless body collapsed back into the hole, and before I could think too much about it, I switched my grip on her sword and stabbed down, making sure her brain was dead.

 

Then I threw down the katana and my knees collapsed again, gently putting her head near the rest of her body. I sat there for awhile, looking down at her, remembering. It was quite some time before I could force myself to start shovelling in the dirt, but once I started I couldn’t make myself stop until it was done. I smoothed the dirt as best I could with my hands, then staggered to the creek to wash up, before going back over to her grave and sitting besides it, her katana on my lap. Now my hands wouldn’t stain the grip. The blood I’d already cleaned off. Her sword was as clean as I could make it.

 

“Carl?”

 

I blinked in the twilight, realizing I’d been out here for hours.  

 

“Be.” I cleared my throat. “Be right there, Clem.”  My voice was as wrecked as my face.

 

I went back to the door and made my way inside. I staggered, like I was drunk. I don’t know what was on my face, but Clem gasped, staring from me to the katana, then moaning low in her throat. She knew. She knew without me having to say anything. “Ohh. Oh _no_ Carl.”

 

I searched for Judith, seeing that she had not only stacked every single supply so we could easily pack what was important and redistribute our packs, but had made a little nest for herself in the corner near the woodstove. She was passed out, curled into a ball. Clem gasped again, and I looked back at her, nodding. I went to hug her, but Clem pushed me away, staggering towards the bed. She sat down and hid her face, crying softly.

 

I gave her a few minutes, banking the fire and making sure the door was locked, with the traps all set. I’d pack our shit in a second- you never knew when you’d have to run for it- but not now. Now I had to make sure she was okay. Well, okay as she could be. I slid off my boots, walking with silent feet to where she had curled on the bed, her back to the room and crying softly. She didn’t respond as I took off her boots, putting them by mine, where our jackets still hung, the leather scrubbed as clean as it could be.

 

I carefully fit myself behind her, spooning her smaller body and pulling her closer. She shivered and froze, then relaxed against me, shifting a little more towards the wall so I’d have room in the bed.  We were quiet for a few moments before Clem moved, flipping over so that her face was pressed into my chest, curling into my side so closely that our legs tangled together.  My breath caught. The bright burst of arousal was completely inappropriate, and I did my best to ignore it. I hadn’t touched her like this since we were kids, when my stupid, hormonal body didn’t know what the hell to do with all the feelings being so close produced.

 

My older self ignored everything, concentrating on stroking her hair, sliding my hand down to her back, and back up. She allowed me to comfort her and I felt honored by that trust. Her hat had fallen off when she rolled over and Clem’s hair was so much softer than I had imagined. She made a sound and burrowed deeper into the heat of my body. I stared up at the ceiling, not speaking. Not sure what I’d say, really. Clem knew better than anyone how much it hurt to put down someone you loved. It never got any easier. It never would.

 

I lost count of how many times I stroked Clem’s hair and back, listening as her quiet crying tapered off into gasping breaths, then quiet, even breathing as she fell asleep.  Greedily, I lay there a little longer, taking as much comfort from her presence as she had taken from mine, before easing myself out of bed. The twisted depth perception was still a little weird, and it took me a second to gather myself before I moved towards where Jude had put all our stuff out so neatly and carefully.

 

Clothes first.  It was cold, so it made sense to wear as many layers as we could.  My jacket, Clem’s and Michonne’s were all a thick, supple leather. Clem had insisted on coats that were thick enough that we’d have a chance to avoid a bite.  I ran my shaking fingers over the smoothness of Michonne’s jacket.  Crazy damn woman. She’d taken absolutely nothing useful to her death, choosing instead to leave everything we could possibly use here.

 

It didn't escape my notice that the puffy, dangerous jacket I had quickly grabbed for Judith was missing.

 

"Goddamnit, Michonne," I whispered. I sorted through what I thought we could use, and stuck the rest back in the hiding place.

 

I divvied up everything else. Most of what we'd need, Clem and I had brought with us from our run. God that seemed like so far away now, but it was only yesterday. I split the lighters between both me and Clem, and left out the one Daryl had used to sneak smokes aside for Jude to hold in her pocket.

 

Hell for all I knew, we’d be squatting here for awhile, but it never paid to be stupid. It could be overrun in a heartbeat, so we’d be careful, and we’d be ready.  I moved a pair of jeans and made a soft, surprised sound in the back of my throat. Either Dad or Daryl had found a bunch of those minute rice packets.  As far as food went, it wasn’t fancy, but they were easy to stick in a bag and carry. We could fit a lot in a fairly small space and keep from starving at the same time.  

 

As far as food went, being close to such a huge metropolitan area had ended up working out in our favor.  Our first winter, after Clem had told Daryl about the fact that Walkers sort of ... stopped... in blizzard conditions, we had waited until mother nature kicked us in the balls and had stuck to the suburbs, going for food distribution plants, the big warehouse stores, stuff like that.  Without the walkers jumping out at you at every corner, it was a _fuck_ of a lot easier to scavenge. A loud noise right beside them would wake them up, and god help you if you bumped into one, but regular sound didn’t seem to bug them, as long as the ambient temperature was cold enough.  It was just a matter of throwing open all the doors to a warehouse, or making a new one if you had to, and waiting for  the fuckers to freeze in place for their long overdue naptime. Then we'd spread out, stab the fuckers in the head, and boom. Easy access. 

 

Of course, a lot of those places had been picked over already, but we were successful enough that winter ended up being one of the more popular times to go for runs. In fact, that’s what Clem and I had been doing- scouting potential areas.  We’d just happened to find a lot of shit on the way.

 

The fire popped and I stood up to walk over to the wood pile, putting a larger log into the stove and making sure Judith’s blankets were far enough away so she wouldn’t get burnt. It was easy to decide to go back to bed.  We were as safe as we could be here, and honestly... my heart hurt. I think I was still a little numb, and I didn’t much relish telling Judith in the morning that Michonne was taken from us, but ... no. No, all that could wait until tomorrow.  The blanket was still mussed from where I slid out of bed, and I could see the spot on the pillow that was still dented from my head. The little space looked incredibly inviting all of the sudden.

 

I crawled back in bed and stared at the ceiling until I could make myself fall asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was tearing up when I wrote this chapter. Please don't hate me too much.


	3. Episode Three

My dad was wearing an apron that said ‘Kiss the Cook’, a pair of Daryl’s work boots, and his gun. He had the expression on his face that I knew meant I was in pretty deep trouble, and I tried to go over everything in my head that I had done wrong.

 

“If you don’t hurry up, you’re going to be late for school.”  My mom’s voice was disapproving. She tucked a piece of long hair behind her head. She didn’t seem to notice that she was bleeding from a gunshot to the head.

 

“Sorry mom.” I sat next to Daryl who was smoking a cigarette and talking to Glenn.  Glenn had a baseball bat propped on the table next to him. He was trying to show baby pictures of Maggie to Daryl, who looked like he could care less in that polite way people used to do when confronted by pictures of other people’s kids.

 

My mom sucked her teeth, but smiled. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it. Pancakes?”

 

“Yes please.” Clem’s voice surprised me for some reason, and I looked across the table in shock. She wore a red flannel shirt and her hair was almost inhumanly long, curling around her waist. She had a bright yellow rose in her hair, behind her ear. It was dead, the petals curled up on each other.  Clem turned and fed Judith a piece of pancake, being careful of her baby teeth. She put the pieces of pancake on the high chair and moved back, her long, curly hair swinging terribly close to Judith’s tiny hands. One of the petals fell on Judith’s shoulder.

 

Judith had obviously just turned, and kept trying to snap at the people around her.

 

“Hey Carl.”

 

I looked at my dad.

 

“You know you’re gonna have to keep them safe now, right?” He indicated Clem  and Judith with the pancake spatula.  Judith was gnawing on the bottle of syrup, but couldn’t seem to get it open.  Her baby teeth had rotted and were falling out.

 

“Dad....” I bit my lip a little nervously. “She’s already dead.”

 

My mom leaned down and hugged me, kissing me on the forehead. It was the exact same spot that I had shot her. “Oops! Messy me.” She smiled and wiped her blood off my cheek. “You know your sister will be okay, right?”

 

Clem chimed in. “Yeah, Carl. She just needs syrup.”

 

Daryl flicked his cigarette butt  towards the door. “Come on kid, I taught you better than that.”

 

I got up and walked over to where Judith was sitting. I took the syrup from her- she didn’t care for that at _all_ \-  and popped the childproof top, handing it back to her with a grin.  My sister bit open the rest of the plastic container, and started eating it. Once it was all done, Judith was human again, laughing and bouncing in her high chair.

 

“See? You kept them safe. I knew you could.”

 

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. Michonne stood there with her hands on her hips, head cocked a little to the left.

 

“You know you’re dreaming, right?”

 

I didn’t until she said something, but now that she did it was obvious. “Yeah. If you’re here though, this better not be a sex dream.”

 

Michonne snorted. “As if you could even figure out how to use that itty bitty thing of yours.” She shook her head, braids swinging as she teased me.

 

I hushed her, worried that Clem would hear.  She was still wearing the red flannel, and as she stood up to bring the dishes to the sink, the flannel shirt parted, showing smooth glimpses of her thigh and leg.  

 

Michonne flicked me on the ear. “You sure this ain’t a sex dream?”

 

I tried to hide the way my body responded to seeing Clem. It was pretty obvious in my pajamas.  “Uh. Yeah.”

 

Michonne grabbed my arm and immediately, we were looking at the converted garage, standing in the swirling snow.  Michonne sighed, and I looked around.  Her grave had a slight dusting of snow over it, and it pissed me off. I walked over to go clean it off, but she stopped me before I could get there, nodding towards the door, which was standing wide open.  “This way, Carl. You need to see this.”

 

I walked in behind her and looked around.  The garage was the same as it was when I had fallen asleep. Clem and I were curled up together, almost indecently close.  Judith was curled in her own blankets, snoring softly. She’d always slept well, and I was glad that she was doing so now.

 

“What, uh. What did you need me to see?”

 

Michonne raised an eyebrow, looking over at where Clem and I were sleeping.  “You know that’s gonna be a problem at some point right? Just on a physical level. You’re young, she’s young, and you’re together. It’s gonna be a problem if you don’t tell her.”

 

I looked away, frowning at Michonne. “I don’t want to tell her. I can’t. It will mess everything up.”

 

Michonne nodded. “Probably. But that doesn’t mean that everything would be broken. Just different. Now come on. There’s something else you need to see.” She took my hand and

 

***

 

I woke up all at once, my eye widening, then narrowing as I took in my surroundings, heart thudding crazily.  It was still dark.  The fire had gone to just embers, and I realized that Clem must have kicked the blanket we had been using off onto the floor, because I was pressed to her, with my front to her back.  I swallowed, realizing that I was hard, and pressing into her ass. I eased back a little, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.  I had one arm stretched out under the pillow, and Clem was laying with her head next to mine. My other arm was draped over her hip, and in my sleep I had wormed my hand up under her shirt, fingers resting lightly on the soft skin of her stomach.

 

Oh _shit_.

 

I pulled my hand away, slowly, rolling over onto my back in increments. Eventually I managed to inch my way to the edge of the bed, and hover there, part of me still waiting for Clem to stab me for daring to touch her.  I looked down at myself and rolled my eyes. I certainly wasn’t going to jerk off with my sister in the room, let alone in bed with my... friend, so instead I concentrated on breathing, trying to remember the dream I’d had.  Something about.... no. It was gone.  

 

I had just shut my eye again to sleep when I heard it, a knock on the door that was so loud in the quiet of the night that I had rolled off the bed and into a shooting pose, almost before I thought about it.

 

“Carl?” Judith’s whisper made my adrenaline spike higher, and I struggled to stand up. Vertigo sent everything tilting crazily, and I stumbled, the gun flying out of my hand and skittering on the ground, landing in the corner near the door.  

 

The knock came again, and this time we all heard the voice accompanying it. “It’s me.” The whistle that followed was ‘be on guard’.  

 

Carol!

 

Clem calmly stood and reached out a hand to help me up. Any lingering sleepiness had dissipated from her features. She looked on guard, and ready for just about anything.  “Judith, come over here.”

 

Judith did, wordlessly handing me her gun.  I realized that Clem had her come to me, because the opposite would have put me facing the door with my blind side.  Clem waited until we were ready, Jude standing a little behind me, me pointing my gun at the door, before unhinging the drop trap we had placed on the threshold. It slid slowly to the ground with a muffled _clink_  and Clem calmly unlocked the door, her gun unholstered in her hand. I had a quick second to be proud that there didn’t seem to be any problem with me holding, or aiming the gun. I’d have to practice later, to make sure I was still quick enough so as to not be a sitting duck.

 

She swung the door open and stood standing there, completely blocking my shot.  In fact, she stood standing there so long that I was beginning to get concerned.

 

“ _You_ again! I knew this!”

 

To my shock, Clem lurched forward and back, fist balled up in the jacket of a man. She jerked him inside, off balance, and let him fall, aiming the gun at his head and narrowing her eyes in that way I knew well; she was furious and about to lose her cool.

 

“Wait! Wait, Clem. He has information.” Carol stepped into the room and calmly locked the door behind her, as though this were a normal night.  She was carrying a duffel bag, and looked exhausted. Her hand cupped her ribs, and I could see she had had a scalp wound at some point.

 

“He’s a liar. _And_ a thief and whatever he told you is a fucking _lie_!”

 

This time, hearing her cuss did not make me think she was cute. In fact, I was pretty sure she was about to blow this dude’s head off.  “Clem...” I started, staring at the man on the floor. He was skinny, wearing a parka and jeans that were just as blood-spattered as everyone else’s. He had some sort of an accent, but I couldn’t tell what. Slovak? Russian? He was lying on the ground as though he expected it.  He slowly pushed his glasses up on his face. Carol had obviously taken his weapons, and even though Clem was much smaller than him, she had him huddled on the floor with no problems. He had what looked to be old burn scars on his hands, but other than that, I didn’t know him.

 

“Clementine. Please put the gun away. He told me what happened in the med center, and he knows what happened to Rick and Daryl, so I’m going to need you to stand down.”

 

Very few people argued with Carol Peltier when she used that voice- and Clem was no exception.

 

For some reason, I saw Clem dart me a quick, guilty stare before glaring back down at the man on the floor.   Wait... _what_ happened in the med center?

 

From behind me, my sister made a sound like a sob and almost flew towards Carol, throwing her skinny arms around her and hugging her hard.   Carol winced, trying to protect her ribs before her whole face softened for a second, and I saw her close her eyes in thanks before looking around the room, making her way back to me. Concern flickered over her face as she took in the mess of bandages on my face.

 

“Clem, go stir up the fire. We have a lot to talk about. Arvo, go sit in that chair and for God’s sake, don’t piss her off.” Carol huffed out a frustrated breath, and I flicked on the safety, putting my gun away.  Adrenaline had pushed away any lingering wooziness I felt by standing up too quickly, and I made my way over to her for my own hug.  She was trembling, and she clung to me for just a moment before cupping my face on my good side, turning my head so she could look at where the bullet grazed me, before lightly pushing me towards the heat from the cookstove.

 

Clem was clearly not happy.  She poked at the embers, and bent over, blowing to get a flame before building the fire back up and shutting the grate. I saw the stranger check her out several times, with quick, furtive glances.

 

My eye narrowed, and I stepped back from Carol. It was killing me not to blurt out a demand for information about my dad and Daryl, but Carol’s whistle told me that she clearly didn’t trust this joker either.  “You hungry?”

 

“Yeah. Frozen mostly. We’ve been walking.”

 

Judith and Carol walked arm in arm to the stove, and Clem sat down near them, pretty much as far as she could get from.. Anvil? Ardo? Whatever his name was.  I made my way to the shelf and got some jerky, handing it and some water to Carol, and fairly reluctantly to the man at the chair.   Carol ate fairly slowly, but he ate it almost too fast, curled over it protectively like he thought someone would take it away from him.

 

“I may speak?”

 

Clem crossed her hands over her chest, still glaring. All I could see was the bill of her cap pulled down, and her mouth a grim line.  Carol nodded, gesturing with her jerky. “Tell them what you told me, Arvo. About Rick.”

 

The tiny sound Judith made hurt my heart.  It occurred to me that I hadn’t even told her about Michonne yet. She’d been asleep when I came back inside, and Clem’s crying hadn’t woken her up.

 

Arvo took a deep breath, then a small sip of water before beginning. His whole demeanor was that of someone who knew he was about to get his ass kicked. He spoke haltingly. Weirdly, he kept darting glances at Clem, like he was looking for her approval. “The group of men I was with are not nice people. They’ve been working for six months to get inside your Alexandria Zone, and break the man Rick Grimes.”

 

This time Judith made a shocked sound, and Arvo looked towards her, frowning. “This is not good story for little girl.”

 

“She’s fine. Finish!” Clem spoke before I could.

 

“The leader of our group is a man named Charles Monroe.” I froze a little, shocked. I knew Chuck. He’d lived at the ASZ with his dad before they’d ... left.

 

“As he tells the story, Rick Grimes is responsible for his father being... no man. Rick Grimes stood by and watched as two prostitutes cut off his--” Arvo stopped, biting his lip. “Manhood. That is word, yes? Yes. So that he was no man no more. Then Rick Grimes’...” The word was Russian and Arvo looked blank for a second, as though he were trying to translate in his head. “Boyfriend escorted him and Chuck out of walls and left them for the biters.”

 

“I told you- you can’t trust him! He said it himself, ‘our group.’ He’s _working_ with them!”

 

I sat in the rickety chair next to him with my elbows on the table, my hands crossed over my mouth. I didn’t have the peripheral vision to see what Judith and Clem were doing, but Carol was staring at me with worry in her eyes. “Let him talk, Clem. Please.” I turned to her and she settled back down, quite obviously still seething.

 

“Carol wants me to show you their hideout, so you can get this Rick Grimes back.”

 

“Where is it?” I didn’t expect him to tell me, but to my surprise, he turned to me and answered immediately. His eyes were blue behind his glasses.  He once again reminded me of a dog, this time one looking for approval.

 

“In one of the historical buildings in Cameron Station. I show you. Yes?”

 

I knew that area. It was a kind of ritzy area, or had been, geared towards empty nesters with money to burn.  When the original Zone people had started building walls, they had kept the smaller, more self-sufficient community. Lots of Alexandria had been torn to ruins, but the area near Cameron Station I knew, from my time on runs.

 

“Why the fuck aren’t we moving already?” I looked accusingly at Carol and she shook her head. She hissed, pressing lightly on her ribs, but shook her head when Clem looked over at her with concern.

 

“It happened fast. From the inside. Tyrese immediately thought someone was attacking the armory, so we made our way there. There was a commotion, and I saw Rick and Daryl being dragged into a car. It was Monroe. Ty started shooting at them, and I thought he hit Monroe, but then....” Carol’s voice caught, then trailed off. It took her a second to start back. “They were throwing molotovs, and I had to run. The armory blew, and I was knocked out. When I woke up, the semi had already hit, and the car with Rick and Daryl was long gone.” Carol frowned at Arvo. “I found him outside, trying to fight off a group of walkers. I saved him, and he told me what happened.”

 

Clem who had stayed silent through all this sat up straight. She was staring right at Arvo, who looked back nervously. “When I was eleven years old, I caught him and another guy in our group stealing all our food, water, and medicine, and trying to steal our truck. He shot me in the shoulder and left me for dead. We had a baby with us who wasn’t even a week old.” Her words were hard, matter of fact.

 

I remembered that she had showed all of us her scar, actually in this very place. It had been almost the first time she’d opened up to my dad and Daryl, and told them about her past. It was really fucking difficult not to grab for my gun and shoot the fucker in the face. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the way Arvo flinched, jerking his gaze down to the floor as he hunched even further in on himself.

 

“Yesterday, while I was in the med center, I found him stealing again, this time shoving med supplies in a duffel bag. I caught him, and he... We.”  

 

She looked over at me again, and I didn’t understand the look on her face. I mean, I got it. She looked guilty, but I didn’t understand _why_.

 

When Clem spoke, it was fast; quick and dirty, like bullets from a gun.  “I recognized him, and he recognized me. I took a step forward to jerk the duffle out of his hand. He reached for his gun and--”

 

Carol made a loud, gasping cry, and Clem broke off what she was saying immediately. “Jesus, Carl, get me that bag. _Now_.”

 

I stood up slowly, mindful of the occasional vertigo, but was able to move quickly enough once I was up.  I bent slightly and picked up the duffel, turning and bringing it to where Clem was helping Carol ease off her jacket and shirt. I thought I caught sight of the paleness of bone and dropped the bag rather hastily, trying not to hoark up. I wasn’t a doctor or anything but I knew for damn sure that a person’s ribs weren’t supposed to bend that way.

 

I noticed that Arvo was staring at Clem again, looking awed, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.  I heard the rattle of painkillers, and Carol’s sigh.  From experience, I knew Clem was prodding the bruises, testing for ... well I wasn’t exactly sure what. Bleeding maybe. She was quiet as she started wrapping Carol’s ribs.

 

“Two are broken for sure, but the other is just bruised. Shit, Carol, you _walked_ with this? You’re lucky they didn’t cut through the skin. As is, you could have internal bleeding, or--”

 

I peered back over my shoulder, more pleased than I could articulate that what I had taken as bone was actually just the paleness of Carol’s skin, on the inside of a really terrible bruise. It was blue and black, and easily the size of both of my hands.

 

Clem turned over her shoulder to glare at Arvo, who immediately froze in place. “You let her walk like this?”

 

“I. She-- I am sorry, Cl--”

 

Clem looked so furious at him saying her name that Arvo broke off hastily, looking back at Carol, almost as if for help. I wasn’t sure if Clem would need me or not, but figured I could get up just as easily and went back over to the rickety chairs and the ancient card table to sit by the newest member of our little party. His gaze darted from me to Clem to Carol, and then back down to the table, obviously feeling that he would get in less trouble that way.

 

Clem snorted. “Bullshit. No you’re not.” She turned to Carol. “So if you trust him, really trust him, then fine. He can lead us to Rick and Daryl. If not, I’m fine just shooting _him_ in the shoulder and letting him see how he likes it. Maybe break _his_  ribs and have him walk for a day.”

 

I took a deep breath.  “Everyone... we need to calm down. None of this is doing anyone any good.” It was hard to accurately gauge time with the firelight and the mirrors that had been placed to take advantage of the smallest amount of light that came in through the ceiling during light hours, but I had seen enough when Clem opened the door to Carol to make a good guess. “It’s about daybreak. I’d prefer to go now, get there, and check the place out.”

 

“I get you in! No problem. No fighting. They trust me.”

 

I had to roll my eyes at that.  “Yeah? That’s why they left you behind? Either because they trusted you so much or you’re supposed to lead us back there.”

 

Arvo frowned, glaring a little. “They trust me,” he repeated. “I make sure of it.”

 

Well, we’d see. I wasn’t holding my breath.

 

Carol let Clem help her up, walking hunched over to the bed. “If you’re ready to go, then you must not be expecting anyone else.”

 

Her voice was low, and I winced. I remembered way back before all this happened, before dad was shot and everything went crazy, my mom’s father passed away. A heart attack. My mom had cried for several weeks. My dad had walked on eggshells around her. I don’t know how long I spent crying, but ... now? There wasn’t time to mourn our dead. Not really. Not if we wanted to go on.

 

“I saw Maggie and Abraham. Rosita. Eugene and Tara. Michonne.... helped us get out but.” My voice choked up and I saw Carol’s eyes fill with tears.  Judith froze where she sat, but I didn’t know how to make this better. Sometimes I thought that feeling grief was normal, and those times you forgot the people you loved were just aberrations.

 

“Tyreese,” Carol whispered. She bowed her head.

 

Clem cleared her throat and touched her arm to get Carol’s full attention.  “If we’re going to go right away, you should stay here with Judith.”

 

“No! I want to go!”

 

It was practically the first thing my sister had said since we were woken up by Carol’s knock.

 

“Absolutely not. Carol’s going to need you here.” Clem raised her eyebrow at Carol. “You’re staying.”

 

Carol raised an eyebrow. The look on her face said plainly that yes, she would stay, because she wanted to. If she _didn’t_ want to, I don’t think Clem was quite up to the job of making her, ribs or not. She nodded. “As you like. I’ll give you two days before we head out. Do you have a vehicle?”

 

“Yeah. We should be able to make it back, one way or another in two days.” Clem looked at me and I shrugged. Yeah, we could. _If_  nothing else went pear-shaped.

 

I turned my gaze to Arvo. He was watching Clem with something on his face that I did not care for at all. He would dart his gaze to the back of her head, then back down to his hands. His whole body shifted like a kid who had to pee, and it was obvious even to me that he wasn’t telling us everything; that he wanted to, but wasn’t sure if its reception.

 

I know my brain wasn’t working very well. Maybe it was because I had to kill Michonne a few hours ago. Maybe it was seeing all the people that had made up our crazy-ass family dead. Maybe it was losing my eye, or not knowing what the fuck Chuck was up to. My mind kept jumping around, and I was finding it hard to focus. Arvo was... weird. Obviously he and Clem had a nasty history. If I didn’t need him, I can’t say that I would have minded just shooting him and being done with it. But... Carol was hurt. I mean, me? I was hurt too, but the idea of Carol walking here with broken ribs... Arvo would have had to help her. And Carol wasn’t dumb. Her instincts were good. So if he had helped her, then it was because he wanted something or it was out of the goodness of his heart.

 

Guess which one I thought it was?

 

Still... the idea of leaving her alone with Judith bugged me. I could see that Carol was hurt, and looked like she was on her last leg; completely exhausted.  Judith was sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, and I frowned, looking from one to the other.

 

“Carol, you good with just Jude watching your back?”

 

I left a lot of things out. Foremost in my mind though was that it had been Carol who had gotten Judith out of the prison, all those years ago. Jude would listen to her when she ignored me or my dad. Carol was as much her mom as my dad and Daryl were her dads. She needed this time with Carol.

 

“Clem, how sure are you that Carol isn’t ... bleeding? Inside I mean.”

 

“I’d prefer it if we wait another day before we go. I want to see if the bruise gets any bigger.”

 

I met Carol’s eyes, flicked my gaze towards Jude and back to Carol.  Her eyes were dull with pain, worry, or hell. Sadness for all I knew.  But they sharpened for a second and I knew Carol knew what I was really asking. She nodded almost imperceptibly. Had I not been staring right at her, I would have missed it.  That one brief second confirmed that if Carol felt like it was going to go south, she’d not put Judith in a position to have to kill her, like I had done with Michonne. My shoulders sagged for a second. Carol’s lips twitched with something very like a smirk, and the ‘duh, dumbass’ was loud enough from her body language that she might just have well shouted it.

 

That, of course brought me to another question. I turned back to Arvo. “How do we know that my dad and Daryl aren’t dead? That Chuck didn’t just up and kill them?”

 

I think everyone froze for a second, not expecting my question.

 

“Come on, Arvo. You said you made sure they trusted you.”

 

“I.. Yes, but. Well,” He looked again at Judith, then at Clem. “The point of this was ... pain. Revenge, yes?”

 

I was quiet, waiting. I didn’t much like how this was going, but Arvo’s halting words were almost hypnotic.

 

“I do not know either of them. Your father, yes?”

 

I nodded, not seeing any point in lying.

 

“What would seeing their community....” The word he used was in Russian, but he quickly translated back to English. “Overrun, Their family and friends killed... painful, would it not?”

 

My eye widened, then narrowed. All at once the memory of what had been in my dad’s house was clear in my mind, like I had it right in front of me.  Those fucking pink overalls.

 

The Zone was hit early in the morning. While it was partially impossible for me to imagine anyone taking down my dad and Daryl, they were only human. If it had really been an inside job- and I had no reason to doubt that it wasn’t- a number of them could have easily overpowered them.  Someone had staged the scene in my house for it to be seen. Judith had been smart enough to hide, but I could almost _see_ my dad and Daryl, tied up, gagged, escorted by people with guns, react to Tara and the fake Jude on the couch, manipulated into seeing one of their worst nightmares.  Seeing the ASZ burning, yeah. I knew my dad. He’d be wrecked. Beyond wrecked.

 

... and Daryl. _Shit._

 

“They’re hurting Daryl, aren’t they?” I looked back and Clem was staring at me, her light brown eyes wide under the bill of her hat. In the reflection from the fire behind the grate of the woodstove, they almost looked yellow.

 

Arvo nodded. “Yes.”

 

“You _can’t_ stay here.” Carol’s voice was low, but she was just saying what Clem and I were thinking.  I had been thinking of my dad first, but it was just as obvious that she was thinking of _Daryl_ first.  I know that they had been close, almost from the start. They’d come out of Atlanta with us, and that friendship had been around for forever.  I could see her eyes widen and her face flush slightly in panic and could empathize. Believe me.

 

“Their plan was not... not quick. They hurt him, yes, but slow. In days, so Grimes has to watch. You have vehicle, yes? We can make it. No problem.” Arvo looked hopeful, like this was good news and he’d be rewarded.  It bugged me that I couldn’t tell. Either this guy was that good of an actor or he was playing us like a fuckin’ fiddle.

 

“Carl, let me check your stitches and we can be out of here in fifteen.”  Clem’s voice brooked no argument.

 

I sighed impatiently, and nodded.  She had me come over by the table.

 

As soon as I had her in front of me, it was hard not to stare. Closing my eyes made everything feel... too intimate. Too much, with her hands on my face and the sound of her breathing closely.  Looking at her though was hardly better.  She went through the whole rigmarole of cleaning, checking the stitches on my eyelid, rebandaging. The bandage was a little bit smaller around my head, but it still covered the healing wounds on my temple, and covered the whole mess of my eye. This time she used a shirt that had been made into rags long ago. I appreciated the fact a blinding white bandage wasn’t on my face, and I _really_ appreciated Clem had thought of that before I did.

 

God, I was so fucked.

 

Her finger brushed at my eyelid, pulling it up and cleaning underneath. It hurt a bit. Not the lack of eye, but the skin around it was still pretty tender. “Once the swelling goes down, you can let me know what you want me to do. We can probably find a prosthetic eye if you want. But from what I understand, it will just look like you’re winking at everyone.”

 

Judith came over and looked. It must not have been bad, because she leaned in and kissed my cheek. I only saw her go in half way before my peripheral died out, but I could feel her lips on my cheek just fine. It was cute, but I did note that Clem used more iodine on that spot, always watchful for infection.  She quirked a grin at me, and I had grinned back before I thought about it.

 

“You can shoot gun, yes?”

 

Arvo’s voice caused me to lean back, not quite sure when Clem and I had gotten so close. I turned to him while she finished up, checking my ear now. It hurt a little and I hissed, trying not to be a complete wimp and lean away from the feel of the antiseptic. Clem rolled her eyes and just held my head more firmly, pouring it on.

 

“You want find out?”  

 

Clem snorted.

 

Arvo’s eyes narrowed. “If you won’t give me a weapon, and you are not able to shoot, perhaps Clementine and I should be ones who go.”

 

“No.”--

 

“No!”--

 

“Fuck you, man. I can shoot fine.”--

 

“Absolutely not.”--

 

Arvo looked a bit overwhelmed when all four of us spoke at once, but nodded. “I was just asking,” he said slowly. At any other time, and with probably any other person asking, if I were honest with myself, I probably wouldn’t have been so annoyed at the fairly understandable question. Fact of life was defending yourself. Honestly it was terrifying to think that I might be really slow at aiming and shooting. I _couldn’t_ be slow, or people I loved would die. I’d just have to work on it, and hope that muscle memory made up for the fact I only had one eye.

 

“Although...” Carol’s voice was soft. I could see her head turned towards us, although she had remained on the bed. “You are probably going to have to arm him.”

 

Both Clem and I started to protest, and Carol held up one hand. We both shut up.

 

She stared at Arvo for a second, until he looked back at her. “It’s simple. If either of them don’t come back in as good of condition as they are leaving, and I find out that your actions caused any of my people harm,  I will find you myself.” She smiled at Arvo with the sweetest smile you could imagine, although it tended to have the effect of making grown men crap themselves in fear.

 

Okay that was just once, but it was pretty memorable.  

 

Arvo was no different. He actually paled and shook his head hard enough that his glasses almost fell off his face.

 

Clem took a deep breath.  “Okay. Anyone else have anything to bring up before we go? The plan’s simple. Recon, Rescue and Return.”  God, it was easy to hear Abraham in her voice and suddenly I missed him so much that it hurt. Clem grabbed several things from the duffel and put them in her backpack, testing how heavy it was. I had packed it pretty light, knowing that she’d drop it if it impeded the draw of her machete.

 

“Two days,” Carol reminded, softly. Judith sighed and stood up, following us to the door.  She brought Carol’s weapons to her, where they’d be easily accessible if needed, and moved Carol’s bag so she could easily get to it.   

 

“I’m not going to say goodbye.” Judith stood with her hands on her hips. “And no hugs either.”  

 

I swung up my pack, checking my pockets for the keys Michonne had thrown at me. “Not even one hug?”

 

Judith shook her head no. “And if you want any hugs again, Carl Grimes, you’ll come back and bring dad and daddy with you.” Her eyes narrowed. “I mean it.”

 

I nodded solemnly. “I understand.” I held the door open and Clem followed Arvo out. I had only made it about three steps before I heard her boots and felt her throw herself at my legs.  

 

Aw, damnit. “Here,” I said to Clem, tossing the keys to her. I didn’t know where she and Michonne had stashed the car anyway. I pulled Judith away and hunkered down. “Listen. You’re as old now as I was when all this happened. You’re so smart, sweet pea. You can shoot, and track, and you know how to build a fire and keep it goin’. I didn’t know how to do any of that stuff.”

 

She sniffed, but I didn’t see any tears.

 

“You’ve got Carol, and we’ll be back soon enough. I promise, okay?”

 

“Daddy says he can never promise to come back, ‘cuz it might be a lie.” Her whisper was soft, but she looked up at me as though begging me to tell her different.

 

“I would never lie to you.” I smiled and Jude smiled back. It wasn’t much of a smile, but I’d take it. “You keep Carol in line, okay? I think Daryl has some books squirreled away. Don’t forget to set the noise trap, and if you hear anything---”

 

“I know, I know.”

 

She did know, and I couldn’t help but be a little proud of that. “Alright then. Go on.” I poked her in the side just so she’d jump and squeak at me, then the door was shut, and the locks being thrown. I heard a faint clink of the noise trap being raised and smiled.  I stood and looked around for Clem and Arvo.

 

Clem was sitting in the driver’s seat, and Arvo was talking low to her from the passenger’s side. I could see Clem frowning from under the shadowed bill of her hat and I was completely unprepared for the dark feeling in my gut.  Jealousy wasn’t exactly new, but it had never been this bad before.

 

And also not the time.

 

I walked around to the passenger backseat side and slid in, trying to push away my stupid emotions. “What, you don’t want me to drive,” I joked. I didn’t miss the sudden, uncomfortable silence, or the way Arvo jumped.

 

“Hey at least we’re not tied up together this time.”  Clem smiled at me in the mirror and started up the truck. Daryl had kept it running smoothly, for all that it was for emergencies.

 

“I miss something, yes?”

 

I didn’t bother to respond, instead rooting through Clem’s pack for the knife she always kept stashed there. I found it and debated, on whether or not to take it, then shrugged. “Here.” I said, handing the smaller knife and my second gun to Arvo. “Don’t fuck this up. Clem, you know where you’re going?”

 

“Yeah. I’m gonna go around though, and come at it from the south.”

 

“The 613?”

 

“I think so. Easier than messing with 495.”

 

She was right. The original folks at ASZ had done a hell of a job with staged wrecks to keep people away, and one of the biggest kept all the lanes blocked. They’d pulled down a tunnel, and it was pretty fucked up.

 

Arvo tipped his head back onto the headrest and I frowned at him.  Clem was tense as she drove, and I couldn’t help but think of what they had talked about. What would they have had to talk about? She hated him. Didn’t she? And what the hell had happened at the med center that everyone was tiptoeing around?

 

I’d gotten in the habit of not asking questions, of observing and figuring things out for myself before pushed for an answer. Not coming right out and asking was really difficult though.

 

I stifled a sigh and looked out into the early morning darkness. I could see the sun was about to rise, and I was glad for it. I wasn’t much interested in using the headlights. Especially after what happened; that would make it far too obvious that we were here. Daylight meant that we’d have a better chance of sneaking up on them.

 

I knew Clem knew the streets as well as I did and relaxed a little as she drove.

 

It was a pointed silence. A weird one, heavy with nervousness and adrenaline, exhaustion and determination. Arvo was a gamble, to say the least, but i was fine with using whatever tool I had to to get my dad and Daryl out of there. At least he seemed as though he was trying to help. I found my hand twitching towards my knife as I stared hard at the back of Arvo’s head. He had one chance to prove he wasn’t the dickhead Clem obviously thought he was.

 

He’d better not fuck it up.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- You'll note that I changed it from 5 chapters to 7. :D I will try to stick to posting twice a week, but it will possibly be once. 
> 
> 2- Arvo. Oh, Arvo. In my gameplay, even though Clem was nice to him (didn't steal anything, offered him rum, etc) he shot her. Just ... BOOM and me going O___O at my screen for an hour and cursing. So, I kind of wanted to revisit that.


	4. Episode Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter is long.
> 
> Edit: 30 June; small issue with formatting and gah found some typos. Also bumped up the chapter count from seven to eight, and I _think_ that's it. Honestly.

“No. Come on Carl. You know that’s not how ya do it. Shane showed you this before, right?”

 

Mentioning Shane made me vaguely sick, and I sighed, rolling my shoulders and squaring my hips. I nodded; Daryl was right. I _could_ do better.

 

“That’s better.” Daryl nodded, satisfied. I pushed back the brim of my dad’s hat and squinted, trying to aim the heavy pistol with one hand. For some reason, I remembered that I had left the hat sitting on the mantle in the apartment that Clem and I shared, and the realization that I would probably never see it again made me frown.  The muzzle of the gun dipped.  It was weird to see my skinny arms holding the gun. I knew that if I looked behind me the prison yard would be stretched out behind me. Daryl and I were on a little hill, and I had a fairly decent shot to the endless stream of walkers trapped by the fences.

 

A memory then. Was this a dream? It had to be, right?

 

“Now come on. LIke I showed you. Brace it.”  Daryl’s voice was just as patient as it had been that day in the prison.  

 

I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding and brought my other hand up to brace it, trying not to lock my elbows.  Shane had been less than patient when showing me how to shoot. A lot of his attention had been on Andrea, and I remember my mom had been pretty pissed that he was showing me at all, so any mistake was an excuse to stop and have me go back to helping her.  Daryl was more so. Since we only had so much ammo, it was important that I take out walkers at  the prison fences, so being able to practice like this was a treat. Spending time with him like this was even more awesome- since dad was… broken… Daryl had been everywhere at once, taking care of the group.

 

Dad hadn’t been the same since I’d had to shoot mom.

 

“Daryl, do you think my dad is mad at me?” I squeezed the trigger and watched the walker’s brains exit its skull in a spray of rotten tissue and blood.

 

I felt Daryl look at me, and he tapped my shoulder so that I’d lower the weapon. I quickly put on the safety and handed it back to him, squinting up at him in the sun. This was before I’d grown into my height, and in the dream Daryl looked impossibly tall. He stared down at me surprised. Upset.

 

“Naw... wait. You don’t really think that shit do you? That Rick is mad at... oh. You do.”  His whole body sagged for a second, like he was sad.

 

I had. Of course my dad was mad. He’d gone through a lot to find us... followed us to Atlanta... done everything so he could be with my mom again. And I’d killed her.

 

“No, kid. Your dad ain’t mad at you, or at Little Asskicker. He’s just.... off. Gonna be out of it for awhile. But your dad loves you more’n anything. You know that, right?”

 

I guess I had to hear it to believe it. Plus, Daryl didn’t lie. So if _Daryl_ said it, then it had to be true.

 

“I guess.” I shrugged, pleased. But I had to make sure that I could really shoot, even when it got bad. If dad was gonna be out of it, then it was my job to step up and take care of---

 

****

 

“--Judith. I should have just gone with Carl in the first place, instead of.” Clem made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

 

I don’t know what kept me from opening my eyes and sitting up. It only took me a second to switch from the dream of Daryl teaching me to shoot in the prison to riding in the backseat of the truck. Weird to think that _that_ memory of all of them was the one that stuck with me, enough that I was dreaming about it. I listened, keeping my breathing quiet. Before I nodded off, Clem had gone north and backtracked like she’d said before, but we found ourselves having to make another detour due a lot of walker activity. I didn’t know where we were now, but it was full daylight. Clem would wake me up when she needed me, and the fact that she hadn’t...

 

Well. I was a naturally curious person.

 

I didn’t even chance opening my eye. Clem was driving, but I could easily imagine her watching me in the rearview mirror. I debated letting out a snore, then thought that no. That was overdoing it a bit.

 

“I should have realized you had an ulterior motive.” Her voice was low and gritty with anger.

 

“Nyet!” Arvo whisper-shouted, and Clem shushed him. There was a long silence before he spoke again, his voice a bare whisper over the sound of the truck.  “No. The plan was to have me take what I could find in medical center, then burn the rest. I ask for that job because they said you were doctor. I hoped to see you but _never_ thought I’d--”

 

“Kiss me?”

 

_Kiss her?!_

 

Arvo snorted. “Was stupid plan,” he muttered.

 

Yeah no fucking kidding it was a stupid plan! _Kiss_ her? Kiss... Clem. No wait. Back in the cabin, Clem had very carefully said ‘we’d’. So she’d kissed... back?  

 

It was extremely difficult to keep myself frozen in place, pretending that I was still sleeping. I felt like my heartrate was galloping visibly in my chest.

 

“Bullshit.” Clem was silent for a few minutes. “The fact that you were working for them disgusts me.”

 

“Yes. They are disgusting people. Your gate person would not let me into your... zone.” Arvo sounded bitter, but also exhausted. He mumbled something in Russian under his breath. “So... was plan to get in... Oh. Turn left, here.”

 

I made myself stop freaking out, and shoved the sick feeling of betrayal and... yeah okay I was jealous alright? Clem had never dated, or anything like that in all the years I’d known her. She just, didn't’ have sex. Or if she did, she didn’t talk about it. And the fact that she’d wanted _that_  rat bastard made me want to... well. I was being stupid, but telling myself that I was being stupid didn’t change anything.  I was sick.  I wanted to hit him. To grab her and kiss her, and show her; have her r _ealize_ I was here.  To somehow have her want me back.  

 

I felt the truck turn, and leaned with it, still playing dead.

“Carl?” Clem’s voice was soft, and it made something low in my gut tighten.

 

I opened my eye and sat up, rubbing my neck keeping my gaze outside of the passenger side window.  I caught sight of my reflection in the truck’s glass and frowned. I really was missing a decent sized chunk out of my ear. Clem had but a bandage on it, but it was easy enough to see what was missing. I turned my head, looking at the angry, red stitches peeking out from under my hair. God, and my eye. I couldn’t see anything from behind the bandages, but … maybe it was better that she and Arvo were… well. Whatever they were. Clem didn’t deserve to saddle herself with... I mean, I was always gonna look like this.

 

“Carl?”

 

I realized I hadn’t said anything and made myself look over at her.  I met her gaze in the rearview mirror and saw her tentative smile. It made me feel like even more of an asshole. Why the fuck couldn’t I just be happy with being her friend? Her _best_ friend. I should be just ... supporting her. If she wanted this stupid fu--- _Arvo_ , then okay. I’d deal.

 

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, “We close?”

 

Arvo nodded. “Yes.”

 

Clem turned and drove until there was an alleyway not blocked by any fences, parking the truck where we could get to it easily.  Since this wasn’t too far (in distance, although it seemed like days and days away, now) from the Zone, I knew that there had been parties sent out to take care of some of the dead in scouting trips.

 

The sound of the truck on the silent street had brought several to our location, and it was easy enough for the three of us to slide out of the truck and dispatch them. I tried not to be pissed that Clem stuck close to me, like she didn’t quite trust that I could still kill them, but I found that pretending to close my dead eye was sufficient enough to allow me to stab them with my knife.  I just kept my blind side to the truck, and trusted Clem and Arvo to tell me if something was coming up at my back or not. I was slow. Shit, was I slow. But I got it done in the end, and I knew that once things calmed down, I could maybe improve my timing.

 

Arvo jumped at them with strange, graceful movements. His long arms were pretty much ideal for a close kill.

 

Clem kept her long-favorite method of taking them out at the leg then stabbing them in the head.

 

We weren’t even winded. It wasn’t quite cold enough for them to be frozen in place, but they seemed slower to me.  Or maybe that was just the adrenaline talking. Crap. If the cold  _had_ slowed them down, and my reaction time was _still_ slow, then I was fucked.

 

“Are there guards?”

 

“I do not know how many survived.”  Again, Arvo didn’t hesitate in answering. “Closer to the building, yes, assuredly. This far out...” He shrugged. Either he was the best liar I’d ever met or he was telling us the truth. Or... and yeah I didn’t much like this thought at _all._.. Arvo was telling the truth to impress Clem with his willingness to be helpful.

 

Clem- who he’d kissed.

 

Clem- who’d kissed him _back_..

 

Arvo looked at the freshly dead walkers, and the few other, less fresh corpses. “We use these to hide truck, yes?”

 

I looked at Clem. She looked back and shrugged. “I guess.”

 

Arvo didn’t say anything, turning and bending to make the truck look less like it had only been sitting there for a few minutes. Clem helped him. I watched the way the two of them worked well together, and tried not to glare. I made myself keep watch, looking for any other walkers that seemed interested.  It was easy to see what the area had been like, before all of this. Fancy. Like the downtown of a city that knew it was only there as a status symbol. Brick buildings, iron fences, coffee houses and cobblestone streets. A college town maybe, or a place for people my age and without kids to live and meet others. It was weird to think about- how different their lives were from mine now.

 

“Is good. We go?”

 

Clem turned towards me but I just shrugged. Arvo didn’t take the main road, like I was expecting. He kept to buildings, going through them or around obstacles and stalled out cars quietly, keeping away from the main access areas. He ducked through fences and blockages in way that said clearly that he knew where he was doing.

 

“Where are we going?”  Clem, seeing the winding way we were going, spoke quietly.  Arvo shook his head, put one finger over his mouth in a _shhh_ gesture, then pointed with his chin towards a shadowy overhang that had once housed someone’s last stand.  We followed him in, looking around cautiously. There were bodies littered around. I couldn’t help but look down, nervous about walking through them. You never knew when one would pop up for a snack. Clem was two steps ahead of me; stabbing any of them that didn’t have an obvious head wound, and even a few that did.

 

Once we were inside, Arvo pushed back his lank hair and turned back towards us. “We are close. I do not know if snipers are still on watch.” He shrugged. “Better to be careful.” His gaze went to Clem, then darted quickly to me. He sighed, pinching the top of his nose. “I have an idea, but... you must trust me fully to get you inside.”

 

I debated laughing in his face, but only for a minute.  The sound would have echoed, and drawn the attention of the walkers outside. _Trust_ him. Yeah right… asshole.

 

Clem looked at me, but I kept my gaze on Arvo. I knew that I was being a dick, was in effect punishing her for something that was absolutely none of my business, but.  When I shut my eye I could _see_ them... twisted together, lips and tongues working each other, his hands on her ass and hers buried in his hair. In contrast,  I could see Eugene on the floor, trying to protect Tara, and hear the shot Jude took in her defense when I threw open the door to my old bedroom. I _was_ pissed. Disappointed. Fucking _disgusted_.

 

I tightened my grip on my knife and pointedly put it away in its sheath on my hip.

 

“Let’s hear it.” Clem folded her arms and stood there waiting, knees locked and back straight, braced against what Arvo was about to say.

 

Oh. Of course she’d want to trust him. God. This was _stupid_. I needed to pull my shit together. I took a slow, deep breath and focused back on Arvo’s face. He was watching the way my hand clenched on the handle of my knife, darting a wary gaze up to mine. I hadn’t seen him until I turned to face him fully, and realized that he was .... afraid.

 

Of me.

 

Arvo cleared his throat and began. “The building we stay in is old warehouse. Furniture. Wood. Provides much cover, many distractions. There was twelve of us, and I do not know how many are alive, so we must plan for worst and hope for best, yes?”

 

Clem shifted beside me so that our shoulders brushed. It was no more or less than we’d done a hundred of times before, but I immediately moved so that we weren’t touching, the small spot where her coat had brushed mine almost tingly with sensation. If just touching _clothes_ did this much, then having her touch...

 

_No. Stop it, Grimes._

 

“You will not like this, but I think we should split up. One of you walk in with me. As my prisoner. We see how many live, and attack.”

 

I snorted.  “Oh yeah? _That’s_ your plan?”

 

Arvo continued, talking over me like I wasn’t there. “You cannot be seen. They have Rick Grimes and use his... lover to hurt him. Having his son would be bad. Very, very bad. They only need one of you to keep Rick Grimes… calm. To make him hurt. The other...” Arvo shrugged, and I tried to hide my sudden shiver.

 

Clem frowned, tilting her head. “Actually, that’s not a terrible idea.” She turned to me.  “We come out shooting, you sneak in through the back or something and get them out.”

 

“I think your father will be with the men. To taunt. Not kept away, locked up.  Kept close.” Arvo turned to one of the rubble-strewn areas and grabbed a broken piece of brick, writing on the floor with it.  He quickly sketched two buildings, one with a large X on the floor. “This is backup watch, if still alive.” He marked another X on the top of the other building. “Here are snipers. Very good shots.” He scratched a few other marks. “Here, here and here are windows. Fire escape, yes?” He made a kind of lopsided square. “The second floor has much damage.  Most of the sleeping area is on fourth floor. Main area is here, and here.”  He pointed to the fourth floor and part of the first floor. Arvo looked up, staring at me through his glasses. “You will be... okay yes? With backup?”

 

He meant with me _being_ back up. The problem was, for this? I couldn’t even fault him. If I had been with someone who’d recently been hurt like I was, who had shown signs of illness, or just not “right”, I wouldn’t have trusted them with my life, either.  I wasn’t entirely sure I trusted _myself_ , if it came to that. I hadn’t really had to rely on my reflexes, or my skill with a gun since being shot.  I blinked and focused back on the conversation. Clem was staring at me, but I could tell she was thinking... not really seeing what she was staring at.  

 

“Okay.” I pointed to the second building, where a watch should be. “Is there a back way to get there?”

 

“Yes. If they see me, their guard will be relaxed.” Arvo shrugged again. “I kill, you help. Is easy. I’ve been on that post many times. Is cold, boring work.”

 

“So... how do we know where they’re keeping Daryl? Or Rick, for that matter?”

 

Arvo’s shoulders slumped slightly. “We do not. I was small...” he trailed off, searching for the word. “Potato! I was small potato.”

 

I almost grinned. He just seemed so damn proud of himself for thinking of the word. Clem did grin at him, and that wiped all the amusement I was feeling off my face.

 

“We’re wasting time. How long are the shifts? Do they have radios?” Last thing I wanted to do was kill off someone and have their replacement show up in the middle of it.

 

“Dusk and Dawn. And _nyet_. No radios.  We must be very careful on first floor. Is trap, has many dead ones to keep other dead ones away. That is where they will be keeping Rick Grimes, close to the dead ones. Scared.”

 

That made sense. It wasn’t like anyone knew what time it was.  Even in the ASZ, where they’d hardly lost power once everything went to hell, if you asked someone what time it was you’d get twelve different answers. I know Clem had a watch at some point, but I don’t know if she remembered to wind it.  Digital watches were useless, really. Most of the batteries were dead- even the ones in watches worn by the dead walkers.  Trust me. I’ve looked. Usin Dusk and dawn as guard change- that was fairly common.

 

But...them keeping ‘dead ones’ where they were squatting was... okay it was a bit fucked up, but as a security alarm it would work. As long as you were damn sure they were secure. The smell would keep the other walkers away- assuming they didn’t dig their way out of whatever prison you put them in.

 

I nodded and checked my weapons, making sure that my ammo was accessible. Arvo only had the gun I’d given him and a few magazines of ammo, but he looked competent enough, holding the gun like he knew what he was doing.  Of course, very few people didn’t know our way around a gun anymore.

 

“Let’s go.” Clem’s voice brooked no argument, and we followed Arvo, sticking to where he walked, walking as quietly as we could.  I didn’t much like the idea of a sniper.  It made my skin crawl, and I tried to crowd Clem as much as I could, glad that she was smaller than me so that my body was the more obvious target.  I only got an elbow to my gut once for my trouble once she realized what I was doing, but the smirks we traded did a lot to make me feel better. Of course, as soon as I looked at her mouth I got pissed again, but that was my problem and I’d deal with it. As soon as we found out whether or not my dad and Daryl were alive.

 

From what Arvo said, my dad was probably okay. Physically, I mean.  If Daryl was hurt, or dead then that would be a lot different, and once he found out about all our people it would be... okay it would be bad but I refused to believe he was dead.  He’d been shot, woken up from a coma, somehow found us in spite of everything that could have gone wrong... just no. My dad _had_ to be alive, and that’s all there was to it.

 

Now Daryl? I was less confident.  Arvo had spoken about them taking time, but I had to face the fact that keeping someone like Daryl alive was just stupid; like putting a tiger in a cage and leaving it unlocked. And that? Oh god. I couldn’t think about it. Maybe it was stupid, and I should be preparing myself, but no. I couldn’t do that to Daryl. I’d believe he was dead when I saw him that way, and not a second before.  Until then, I’d do what I could to make sure before giving up on him. He wouldn’t do any less for me.

 

Arvo stopped walking and pointed around the corner of the building. Clem and I both peeked, then jerked back behind our cover.  We needn’t have bothered. Both guys had their backs to us, and were hunched over a fire pit. It was an old oil drum, and it had enough of a blaze that it lit up the fairly dingy morning. Low conversation drifted back to us. They wouldn’t notice if I walked up behind them with a trumpet.

 

Clem tapped Arvo on the back and dug into her pack. I knew exactly what she was going for, and waited while she dug around.  The suppressor wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t like what I remembered from movies, making the sound of a bullet like a whisper, but it _would_ be a helluva lot quieter sound on a nearly silent street. She made a small “aha!” sound, pulled it out and screwed it into place.

 

Clem stretched her neck and moved her shoulders, loosening up. She raised the gun, supported it with her other hand against the kick, and squeezed the trigger. The first guy fell, collapsing where he was, and Clem got the other guy in the forehead when he turned to see where the shot had come from.  

 

There was a bit of an echo, but the buildings were close enough that the sound could have come from everywhere. Clem unscrewed the suppressor and jammed it back in Arvo’s pack. I knew she’d said it fucked with the balance, so she only used it when she had time to set up her shot.

 

“Come on!” Clem darted forward, and we quickly stripped them of weapons. I swung the rifle over my shoulder and jammed the extra knife and  a really wicked looking hatchet in my bag.

 

“Is good. We go in. Yes?”

 

Clem nodded and gave Arvo her pack, hiding a small knife in her boot. She gave Arvo her shotgun and hid her smaller gun in the waistband of her jeans.  That wouldn’t fool anyone who frisked her, but I don’t think Clem would let anyone close enough to her for it to be a problem.  I pushed down the squirming feeling of jealousy at the image of Arvo wearing Clem’s pack and holding her gun. Clem put her hands behind her back and into the leather strap of one of the guards’ backpacks to tie her hands.  It was just a loose slip knot, and I knew she could get out of it in seconds, but it still made me nervous to see her looking helpless, under Arvo’s guard.

 

“You’re sure about this?” I blurted it before my mouth quite okayed it with my brain. Clem looked up at me and her face softened. I felt my stupid heart go from my stomach, where it’d been since I woke up in the stupid truck, to my throat, where it kept me from blurting anything else stupid. Clem was incredible. She was tough and smart, and she’d be fine.

 

“I’m fine, Carl. You can move quicker without us. We’ll wait ten minutes or so before going in. We’ll be a distraction if you need it. I promise we’ll find them, okay?” She moved as though to touch me, but her hands were still bound.

 

I’m not sure why I did it. My stupid body doing things before I thought them through again.  One blink she was grinning kind of awkwardly in a ‘what can you do’ sort of way, and one more blink and I had cupped her face in my hand, my thumb lightly grazing over her cheekbone.  I don’t even know when I stepped that close. I had a brief second of panic before I tapped her on the nose, turning the not-quite-innocent touch into something less weird. Hopefully. Clem had frozen under my touch and for a second it looked like she wasn’t breathing.

 

“Stay safe, okay? Judith will be pissed if you don’t come back with all your pieces intact.”  My voice was a little lower than normal and I cleared my throat, trying to make it seem causal.  I must have succeeded because Clem nodded, smiled, and turned back to the building where my dad and Daryl were being kept.  I locked eyes with Arvo immediately, and I let him see all the rage and jealousy I was feeling. I’m sure my _if you fuck this up I will kill you_  wasn’t all that subtle.  It wasn’t meant to be.

 

Arvo gulped nervously (Yeah okay that made me feel good okay? I know, I know, I’m an asshole.) and grabbed Clem’s shoulder, marching her forward and towards the front of the building, looking like he’d taken her prisoner. They had to go out and around a long chain-link fence to get to the front. It was reinforced, and sturdy enough to use for protection.  She made him wait and even from a distance I could see him shake his head no at her. I paused, watching. She said something else and his shoulders hunched.  

 

I almost shot the fucker in the head when I saw him backhand her hard enough that she wobbled on her feet, but I knew why she’d made him do it. Still, I had to count to ten and breathe for a second before the rage swam away from my vision.  

 

_Focus._

 

I had to either follow them or go up and over the chain link. Yeah. Not even close. The fence would be a pain in the ass, but going around it would take time that I didn’t have.  I quickly climbed the fence and hopped down, looking around on the building side of the alley. For a moment, the fire the two recently dead guards had used was warm at my back as I darted between the two buildings, grabbing onto the fire escape and wincing when it came down with a loud clatter and a scream of rusty hinges.

 

Shit, balls, _fuck_.  Too loud. _Too_ loud.

 

Fortunately for my dumb ass, the sound didn’t bring any walkers or any of the humans we were about to attack running. No rain of bullets from a sniper, either.  Like the crack from the suppressor, the sound had echoed and bounced around the buildings on the block, and it was hard to tell exactly where it had originated. The first floor window was boarded up. The rotten fingers poking out of the slats of wood told me all I needed to know about going in the ground floor window. The sound had sent them going crazy.  Shit, they smelled. You’d think that was one stench I’d get used to, but so many in a confined place like that….. bleck. My stomach rolled and I turned, making my way up the rickety stairs. I didn’t much like leaving them at my back, but I didn’t have all that much of a choice. Those boards would hold.

 

Probably.

 

I quickly made my way up,.  I tried to picture Arvo’s shitty drawing in my head as I climbed. He said that Chuck and his group of soon-to-be-dead men lived on the fourth floor. The second floor looked like the first, only with none of the fingers poking through. The third floor window was also boarded up, but I didn’t see anything behind it. They’d used a sheet of plywood, and there were no cracks or holes to see out of. From the inside it could probably be pulled off, but from this side I’d need a hatch-- oh. I did have a hatchet, but since I didn’t know what was on the other side of the window, maybe I should… yeah. I looked up, frowning,

 

The fourth floor window was open, which seemed really ballsy to me. It also scared the shit out of me, because anyone could have heard the sound the fire escape made through that open window.  I made my way up the last set of stairs, slipping a little in the snow that had collected there, and peeked up and over.

 

With my dead eye, I had to turn my whole head to see inside the grimy window,  which put me at risk for a head shot. Not much I could do about it though.  I didn’t see anyone and climbed through the window as quickly and as silently as I could manage.

 

My nose wrinkled at the sour smell that wafted out. The lingering odor of unwashed bodies, unwashed clothes with remains of god knew what, rotten food, and stained mattresses made it pretty clear that this is where they stayed. There were seven mattresses, and another fire pit, unlit this time, in the center of the room.  I saw belongings strewn about, some backpacks, a green duffel bag, a small shelf with books and that sort of stuff.  I saw a few lawn chairs as I moved by, keeping as quiet as I could as I made my way down the stairs. This was where they lived; where they slept and ate.

 

The third floor looked to have been a mix of offices back in the day, and it was easy enough to see why they’d decided not to stay here. I could see the main staircase on the other end of the room, and a smaller staircase on my side.Part of the floor had burned away. From the hole, the rest of the floor stretched out empty. It was easy enough to imagine that this had housed part of the warehouse space, for whatever they had built here.  From down below I could hear the faint groaning of walkers, and frowned. I listened, but didn’t hear anything that indicated Arvo and Clem had busted through the door. I looked back over my shoulder. This part of the floor was pretty open. Aside from the desks and cubicles crammed by the stairwell, there wasn’t much here aside from some smashed up computers, and a bunch of trash. Whatever they’d stored here back in the day had been picked clean, aside from several pallets and a piece of machinery.  I could see where several shelves had once stood, but they had long since been stripped of any useful metal parts. There was another staircase at the other end of the long room, and an old elevator. The doors had been shoved open, but some kind of equipment was blocking the way.  It looked like a cross between a bulldozer and something they used to use for construction. It was sitting off-kilter, like it was top heavy, leaning partially into the elevator shaft itself.  Daryl was obviously not here. I did check the two bathrooms to be sure, but no. No Daryl. God _damnit._ I made my way across the floor from the offices and down the stairs, moving slowly and trying to listen for any movement.

 

The second floor had a rather rickety-looking catwalk around it. It looked to be part of the original building, but parts had been torn away from the brick wall.  There were several half-assed looking patch jobs of what looked like pallets stretching across the floor. I wasn’t sure if I was willing to trust them, honestly. Here, too, the floor had burned away, but the damage looked worse, like the fire had started here. The steel that had braced the floor was visible in spots.  The only part of the floor that looked normal- it even still had the carpeting they’d used- was a larger bit around the elevator shaft. _Shit!_ Daryl wasn’t here either. I looked around again, like I’d see him just hanging around in the corner. There was some sort of conference room that had been boarded up, and it looked like the fire had taken out a lot of the space.  I couldn’t tell from the burnt patches how long ago the fire had burned, but there were remnants of the same shelving as on the floor I’d just come from.

 

I had just stretched out my leg to test the patch job with my foot, when I heard shouts from downstairs. Ah. About time. I was starting to get worried.

 

“Don’t Move! Don’t Fuckin’ Move!” I couldn’t see anything, but the voices carried up over the moans of the walkers through the floor just fine.

 

“It is me! Arvo! I have prisoner!”  

 

 _Shit_. I still didn’t know where Daryl was.  I looked around the room. The catwalk went down to the first floor, and Arvo had said that most of the actual first floor wasn’t even there. I could see what he meant; the hole extended down into the basement. Now I could hear the groans and grunts from the walkers that were trapped in the basement. I looked over to where the other staircase was, near the elevator.

 

The temptation to look over the railing and see if I could see my dad was really hard to ignore.  Was he okay? Was he hurt?

 

Clem’s scream echoed through the building. The walkers, already hyped up from all the noise we made outside went nuts and knew I was out of time.  The scream would have been Arvo’s signal, either to start shooting or that Clem was going to start shooting.

 

“Rick! Get _DOWN_!!”  Clem.  Gunshots. My _dad._

 

Jesus.

 

There was more gunfire, slower this time, like people did when they were taking potshots at each other.  I looked around, a little panicked. The only other place Daryl could possibly be was in the stairwell near the elevator. I took a deep breath and jumped over the hole in the ground- no time to be fucking with gingerly stepping over the pallets-, landing on the floor near the elevator with a feeling of dizziness so strong it sent me to my knees.  Flying through the air like that had been dumb, but I had landed more or less on the solid part of the floor, windmilling my arms to try to regain my balance.  I hadn’t even thought about it; just reacted like I would have done before I was shot. I was lucky I didn’t fall through the goddamn floor.

 

I’m not sure what made me think of it. Maybe it was because I had landed in front of the elevators.  Maybe it was the fact that I knew the stairs could only go to the first floor, and I refused to think of Daryl as one of the undead trapped below. Whatever it was, I saw that the doors to the elevator were slightly open and wiggled over, trying to shake off the lingering dizziness from my jump across the floor. The closer I got to the doors, the more I heard a weird humming sound. It reminded me of bees, or something like it. I pulled the doors apart and gasped for a second, my jaw falling open in shock.

 

Funnily enough, the first thing that popped into my mind was, ‘So _that’_ s what the Bobcat was for.’

 

From where I had opened the doors of the elevator shaft, I could see a pair of arms.  They were tied up, and he had obviously fought against the bindings that held him, because blood was caked on the ropes from his wrists. There was a meat hook hanging from the arm of the crane-looking thing. The arm was braced against the inside of the elevator shaft, and a quick look up showed that it was pretty well wedged in there. That explained why it had looked off-kilter. I just hadn’t been able to see down the shaft a floor up, so I didn’t know that the reason it was off was that Daryl was hanging from it. Daryl’s arms were shaking and exhausted. He had, at one point, tried to use his hands to help hold himself up. I could see that they were cut from the hook, and bleeding freely.

 

Daryl was covered in blood.  It looked to be his own. I could see several cuts in his arms and legs, and a nasty looking gash from his collarbone down to his belly button that was bleeding sluggishly.  Some of the blood was from his nose, which was also bleeding.  He’d been worked over, beaten up enough that one eye was swollen almost shut, and I think his nose was broken. From this angle it was hard to tell.

 

I looked over the edge and down, and my eye widened. Daryl had been using the lip of the elevator shaft to keep himself up.  Hanging there for so many days would have probably ripped his arms off if he hadn’t.  His toes were bare and bloody, scraped raw from his struggle to take the pressure of the weight of his body off of his arms.  I could see that the elevator was stopped between the first and second floor. From this angle I could also see that it was hooked up to a generator.Well, that explained the humming sound. The humming meant electricity, which meant it was on. Why would they want a working elevator when there were already two staircases? Granted, one was pretty rickety looking, and since it was made mostly from the original wood it had a fuck lot of fire damage, but the other one was fine. I recognized it as one of the generators from the Zone, but it was actually inside the elevator, wires connecting it to the first floor.

 

It was not a kind of elevator I’d ever seen before. Instead of a solid metal box, it was made out of grating. It looked sort of like a fry basket, only the slats were much wider.  There were walkers swarming over it like ants attacking a chip left on the ground at a picnic.  Some were inside, and some weren’t. I could see a giant stack of pallets that they were using as a makeshift staircase to get to their prey. They snapped and snarled as Daryl’s blood dripped down onto them, from only about ten feet away.

 

“Daryl?”

 

He was gagged, and for a second, I don’t think he recognized me. Daryl tipped back his head and the look on his face was pure confusion- he didn’t understand why I was there.  He stared at me with dull, blue eyes.

 

“Shit.” I whispered, hearing Clem’s shotgun blast through the silence.  “I’ll get you out. Just  a sec.” The hook was directly in front of me, and i reached for it.  Daryl came alive at that with muffled shouts that I couldn’t understand from behind his gag. I pulled on the hook, trying to maneuver Daryl’s body closer to the open elevator shaft, so I could grab him.  

 

To my shock, pulling on Daryl caused the chains to rattle, and the cage jerked up almost a foot before I realized what was happening. I dropped it with a cry, and Daryl groaned behind the gag, scrambling with his toes to catch himself before he fell.  One of the ropes around his wrists snapped and frayed. The thick chain clanged against itself, and I saw that Daryl had dropped almost a foot.

 

“Oh my god.” I looked around frantically, trying to figure out what to do.  Daryl was, in effect, part of a giant pulley system. They’d rigged it so that if he was pulled in through any of the floor doorways, the elevator grate from below would be manually pulled up to the second floor by the chains that helped to hold him in place.  

 

From the first floor, I heard a cry, and another round of bullets, and my dad’s roar of, “ _Daryl_!”

 

I bit my lip, looking at the chain. The elevator was held up by more than just the chain that Daryl hung by. It looked like large metal cables were helping to hold the ancient thing up, but two of them were broken.  The wires from the generator were twisted around some of these, and it occurred to me that they had jimmied it so that the elevator would actually rise, or go down if they flipped the switch. I couldn’t jump on it, not with all the walkers on it. Besides, that would send Daryl flinging up towards the third floor, unable to stop himself from falling if the hook fell out of the links of the thick chain.  Or worse, down towards the elevator full of walkers.  I just couldn’t grab him by myself, without bringing the walkers up, and no thank you.

 

I was very, very glad that they were too mindless to think of using each _other_ as a ladder, because ten feet wasn’t very far. Well nine feet, now. Ish. The pallets they’d dropped down there were bad enough.

 

“Dad! Clem! I need you!” I smelled the thick, acrid heaviness of smoke, and tossed a shocked look over my shoulder. I heard feet on the stairs on the other side of the room, and saw Clem, my dad, and Arvo pounding up towards me.  A quick glance showed that my dad looked fine. He had bruises on his face, but otherwise looked unharmed. There was a spray of blood on his chest that told me whoever had done this to him probably wasn’t an issue anymore. Arvo had a cut over his eye, and Clem just sported the split lip she’d made Arvo give her.

 

“We gotta hurry. The fire is gonna let them out. Arvo... help me get. Arvo? _Arvo_!”  Clem grabbed for the man’s arm, but he easily evaded her, running pell-mell for the fourth floor, and escape. Clem actually looked hurt for a moment, like she hadn’t expected him to run.

 

“Clem! Come _on_!” I couldn’t think about Arvo now. If we got out of this, I’d find him and kill him, but now Daryl needed us.

 

My dad took in everything with a blink, then backed up for some leverage, taking a running leap across the floor and landing near me on his hands and knees with a thud and a curse. He’d picked up a bag from somewhere, and I heard it hit the floor with a _thunk_. Whatever was in it was heavy.

 

“Aw, fuck. Okay, Carl, help me. Clem?”  My dad looked over his shoulder and watched as Clem sailed over the gap in the floor like some kind of dancer.  I had looked like a newborn horse that didn’t know how to walk, landing practically ass over teakettle, my dad landed like a bear who faceplanted on a slippery ground, and Clem looked like a gazelle, landing almost perfectly between the two of us.

 

“Okay, Clem, Carl, you grab the doors, be ready to force them shut after I get him inside. We’re gonna have to move quick. Ready? One--”

 

“Dad, no!”

 

“There’s no time to argue! The fire is gonna let ‘em out of their cage and there’ll be about a hundred of those fuckers up here with us in a minute! Now...”

 

“Rick, no he _can’t_.”

 

“I....”  I turned to face my dad, and he took in my bandages and the lump of cloth over my eye with wide eyes and a noise that sounded like he’d been punched.

 

“Oh jesus fuck. Jesus _fuck_ , Carl, what happened?”

 

I shook my head. No time to explain. I looked at Clem on the other side of my dad. “Clem?”

 

She understood what I needed immediately, switching spots with me without comment. Now my blind side wasn’t keeping me from seeing Daryl and my dad, and I could do what he needed.

 

“Okay--- go.”

 

“But..” My dad’s voice was a punched-out whisper. He sounded like he was about to cry.

 

“Later, okay? Come on, he’s too heavy for me to manage alone.”

 

My dad swallowed hard, nodded and braced his feet against the door to give himself some leverage to pull Daryl up. He grabbed the hook and tugged lightly, testing the amount of give.

 

Daryl moaned again when he swung in place. I heard my dad blow out his breath, centering himself. When he spoke, it was evenly. Calmly.

 

“Okay guys. One...... two...... _three_!”

 

Dad didn’t bother with working the pulley, and swung Daryl into the hole made from the doors. My dad did what I couldn’t, taking the weight of Daryl with a grunt. They both wiggled  their feet out of the way as Clem and I slammed the shaft doors shut around the chain. I was already turning, sawing at the ropes that had kept Daryl tied to the hook with my knife, and Clem supported the muscles at the sudden give. We heard the chain slithering back through the doors. Had I been any slower, Daryl would have gone back with it, either being slammed against the mostly shut elevator doors, or pulled down with the elevator itself.

 

We heard a groan of metal scraping against metal , a thud, and the incredibly loud sound of something very large hitting the floor below it. The force of it rocked us back, and I couldn’t hear anything for a few minutes aside from a high-pitched whine deep in my ears. I sagged against the floor where I had fallen, breathing heavily, staring.  I felt Clem’s hand on my shoulder and grabbed it, thankful for the small touch. That was close. That was way, way too close.

 

My dad had wrapped his arms around Daryl, rocking him so desperately that I don’t even think he realized that we hadn’t taken off the gag yet. I  lurched closer to cut it off of him and they were kissing, almost before I got my hands and the blade out of the way. I couldn’t help the exhausted smile as I looked down at them. Daryl looked a mess, but dad was the one trembling in place, skimming his hands up and down Daryl’s arms like he couldn’t quite believe that Daryl was there.

 

“I thought. I thought...” Dad’s voice sounded like rusted metal.

 

“Yeah no shit.” Daryl’s voice was shaky. “Me too.”

 

“Dad. Pops. We need to go.”

 

It had been so long since Clem had called them that that it took them out of their little moment. I had been watching Clem’s mouth move more than I heard the words, but I stood, and helped Dad grab Daryl under the arms. Clem cut the ropes at his ankles and  Daryl took his own weight for the first time in god knows how long, almost collapsing against the wall.  We heard a shuffle and turned to see that two walkers from down below had made their staggering way up the steps on the other side of the hole in the floor.  

 

“Shit. That’s the staircase I came down. They both go to the next floor. We can close them off if we hurry.”  We’d be able to close the doors, but I don’t think we’d be able to bar them in time. There just wasn’t enough stuff left on the third floor. I pushed Daryl’s arm around my shoulders, and held his waist, keeping my bad side away from him. My dad took the other side and Clem pulled open the door that had slammed shut behind Arvo, reloading her shotgun as she walked ahead of us.

 

“I got no reason to stay here. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”  Daryl’s voice was raspy, but it was there, and I felt the painful prickle of tears in my eye as I realized that yeah. He was there, and we were all somehow fine.

 

“Come! We take fire escape!”

 

We were only about halfway up the stairs when I heard him. I stopped, utterly dumfounded. If I hadn’t been helping my dad hold Daryl, then I would have shoved by Clem and jumped on the fucker, pounding his face into dust.

 

“There is fire! We must go quickly!”

 

“Yeah, no shit there’s a fire. You’re the one that set it! You let them out!”

 

Arvo looked incredibly frustrated as he shook his head at Clem. “Was accident. We must hurry, _please!_ ”

 

“Come on. No time to talk. We gotta move.”  

 

I looked back over my shoulder and swallowed.  Flames were licking up the second floor stairs, smoke billowing out. It had a horrible smell of cooked meat and if my dad hadn’t taken that moment to start hustling him and his partner up the third floor stairs, I would have puked right there.  From where we stood, I couldn’t see if the walkers had made their way up the stairs or not.  

 

I heard Arvo go pounding up the stairs, and Clem right behind him.  We emerged onto the third floor, and I saw immediately that the Bobcat had been moved. The floor underneath it was groaning, as though the force from the elevator landing had caused it to be pushed back.

 

I stopped short, shocked.  My dad and Daryl had actually taken three steps without me before they realized that I wasn’t right there with them.  I stared at Arvo, who was looking back impatiently again.

 

“You must _hurry_!”

 

“You... the slack from the chains. We couldn’t have gotten him out if there hadn’t been enough slack.”

 

Arvo rolled his eyes and turned around. “Does not matter. We go. Now!”

 

I knew there was something else, something that I wasn’t seeing, but the smoke and the fact that Daryl was still shaky on his feet was keeping me from it.  It was on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t have the time to chase it down.

 

“Come on, kid. You plannin’ on stayin’ here for the BBQ?” Daryl’s scratchy drawl was as sarcastic as ever and I shook off the feeling, running up the next set of stairs with Arvo, Clem, then my dad, Daryl and me following.

 

We made it up to the living area and Arvo darted to one of the beds, scooping up the green duffel bag from before and slinging it around his neck. Clem already had a leg through the window by the time we got there.

 

“Aw, fuck me!”

 

I heard the blast of her shotgun and dropped Daryl in my haste to get out of the window to help.  By the time I made it, Arvo and Clem were shooting walkers, knocking them over like bowling pins. They were only on the second floor fire escape landing, but with the gunshots came more and more of them.

 

So much for those boards holding.

 

“ _Fuck_ my _life_ ,” I said, disgusted with everything. Arvo snorted as I aimed along with Clem and Arvo and started shooting, bracing my gun with my left hand for balance.  

 

“We have to go forward. Going back isn’t really gonna work!”

 

Yeah, thanks dad. Officer Obvious strikes again.

 

My dad had obviously taken the weapons from the guards, but Daryl didn’t have much. Still shooting, I wiggled out of my pack so that they could get into it. The rifle wasn’t doing me any good, so I was glad that someone could use it. I had the hatchet in there and a spare gun. And Ammo. Lots and lots of ammo.

 

Arvo, Clem and I actually got into a bit of a rhythm. Almost more by accident than design, we managed to have two of us shooting while one of us reloaded. It wasn’t that hard- but losing count sucked, so we had to concentrate. We’d shoot, move forward once the landing was clear, and shoot again.  We made it to the third floor this way, and halfway down to the second before I heard Daryl’s panicked, “Oh.... _shit_ ” from behind us.

 

“Behind you!” Dad’s yell was more of a bellow, and I heard the rifle I’d picked up start blasting away. I quickly looked back and wished I hadn’t. There were walkers reaching out from the fourth floor window.  Some of them were on fire.

 

I jerked my gaze back to where it belonged, catching a glimpse of Arvo and Clem as my head turned. Arvo was muttering under his breath in an almost constant stream of Russian, struggling with his magazine. He got it in place with a shout, switching spots with Daryl and my dad so that he could take the rear. Clem’s face was perfectly blank as she took her shots calmly, hitting every single one exactly dead-center of the forehead.

 

I could feel the heat from the other side of the bricks now, and smoke was pouring out from between the slats of the second floor window. I didn’t even have time to panic, just to shoot.

 

“Clear! Come on!!” Clem’s yell came just in time.

 

We followed Clem as she moved down another landing.  By now there were fewer walkers, but the motherfuckers were on fire, so yeah. That sucked.   My dad had started helping us, leaving Arvo to bring up the rear.  I saw that Daryl had to use the railing to brace his gun arm, and my dad was firing one-handed, with his arm still around Daryl’s waist. Daryl was still hitting his targets, even with arms that had to weigh a thousand pounds each, and firing awkwardly from the side so that he didn’t hit Arvo, who was still behind him, desperately trying to take out the walkers from the fourth floor.

 

With my dad’s help we finally cleared the first floor landing.  Clem jumped down before I could do anything, and I saw that we had killed the walkers that had been in the basement of the building, but the commotion had drawn every goddamn one of the bastards who were even remotely in hearing distance.

 

It was like ringing a goddamn dinner bell.

 

“Oh come on you have _got_ to be kidding me.”  Crazily, Clem was laughing as she shoved her weapons in her waistband of her jeans and started running towards the fence I’d climbed to get here.  She hit the reinforced chain-link and started climbing, tossing her weapons down to the other side so that she could move quickly and use both hands and feet to scurry up and over the fence.

 

“Carl! GO!”

 

I’d been listening to that tone of voice from my dad for my entire life, and didn’t hesitate. I wasn’t as fast as Clem, and could hear the walkers getting closer.  I could see that there were a couple of walkers milling around the building where Clem had killed the two guards, but it was nothing compared to the throng that was on our side of the fence.  I saw them clearly from my perch on the very top before I started climbing down on Clem’s side, dropping the last few feet so I could get to my gun more quickly. They were gonna need my help to hold them off.

 

Clem started shooting.  My dad pushed Daryl towards the fence, and I don’t know where he got the strength, but Daryl was halfway up before he really started to struggle.  My dad tried to help, but had to stop to shoot the walkers in the front of the small herd before they were on him.  

 

My gun clicked, and I reloaded as quickly as I could, trying to ignore the terrible feeling in my gut.

 

“Shit! Rick! Just go! _Go_!” Daryl’s shout as he tried to shove himself up over the fence caused my dad to start swearing, stopping shooting so he could climb up the chain link, pushing and shoving Daryl with his shoulder as they both struggled to climb. I heard Arvo’s whistle and looked over to where he stood, still with one foot on the ladder of the fire escape. There were at least ten walkers between him and us, with more coming every second.

 

“Here!” His green duffel bag came sailing over the fence, landing at my feet.  “You must get her out!” Arvo met my gaze, his eyes narrowed as he nodded at me.  The fire glinted in his glasses as he j _umped_ , flinging himself at the walkers between him and the fence with a yell. He swung quickly, cutting them down as fast as he could but it was suicide.  They turned on him, ripping and snarling on the meat they had in front of them.  It gave my dad enough time to push Daryl over the top of the fence.

 

“Arvo!” Clem’s scream echoed between the buildings as he went down, his screams cutting off with a gurgling wail.  

 

Then it happened.

 

Time slowed to a crawl, like I was seeing everything on its slowest speed.

 

I looked away from where I was shooting, for a second; a half a second, watching Arvo go down, still not quite believing what he’d done.  My dad’s final push on the fence caused Daryl to flail as he fell over, twisting and landing on his side on our side of the fence with a pained grunt.  The movement caused my dad to slip down the slippery metal of the fence.

 

Not much.

 

A half a foot. Maybe.

 

But it was enough for the walker in front to sink its teeth into the meat of my dad’s hand, right between the thumb and the first finger.  Clem blew it away as my dad jerked his hand out of its mouth, climbing up and over the fence, making it look easy. He landed in a crouch, eyes locked with Daryl’s.

 

Time sped up again, and I was lightheaded as I turned to shoot the three walkers  on our side of the fence. Something caught the corner of my gaze and I whipped my head back around, just in time to see Clem cut off the front strap of the sheath she used for her machete. A quick swipe of her knife and she had it tightened around my dad’s arm, under his elbow. She used her boot to step on the arm, throwing her weight back to cut off the circulation as the tourniquet tightened. My dad, who was now staring at his hand with a dumbfounded look on his face, was completely impervious to everything happening around him.

 

“Daryl! _Hurry_!” Clem’s scream sounded like it came from very far away and I was standing there, completely useless, watching the walkers clawing at the fence. My gun slipped from my hand as I stared at my dad, tears completely obscuring my vision until I blinked them angrily away.

 

Daryl raised his arm high, readying his swing.  Firelight flashed on the metal of the hatchet I’d stolen, gripped tightly in his bloody hand.

 

“Oh, _Christ_!” Daryl cried, bringing his arm down with a quick movement. I heard a heavy t _hunk_ , and a scream that seemed drawn from all around us, echoing and bouncing off the walls of the buildings in the small alleyway.

 

I couldn’t stop staring at my dad’s hand, blood spreading out from its severed wrist in a pool, fingers still twitching as though they were still attached.  

 

The firelight glinted on the wedding ring Daryl had finally gotten around to giving him.

 

I met Clem’s gaze, her eyes wide and terrified at what they had just done, tears streaming down her face, and I knew then that she didn’t know if she could save my dad’s life or not.

 

They might have just killed him quicker.

  
  


TBC!

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: *peeks up from her bunker*
> 
> Okay, I've been avoiding leaving my trademark 100000 word author's notes, but I think I just need to explain a teeny weeny bit here. Back in one of the first stories- Into The Sky (I think) I said that I would be using elements from the comics, but not in the same way as presented there. Carl does lose an eye in the comics. Rick does lose a hand. There is a character named Monroe, but he's not as mustache-twirling evil there. Carl and Rick were maimed, in ways not even close, plot-wise. 
> 
> I've gotten a lot of questions about Arvo. All I can say is that we're seeing him through Carl's... _slightly_ biased point of view, and what he sees and how Arvo actually is might be different... at least until Carl gets his head out of his ass. That should be happening during the next chapter.
> 
> Oh, and sorry for the cliffhanger. ^.^
> 
> * **grabs twinkies and Daryl's crossbow and goes back in her bunker.***


	5. Episode Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been remiss in thanking people. My thanks to **Infiniteworld** for helping me with the medical stuff, and to **ladybonerfarts** for the readthru when I was panicking about this chapter. As always much love to my beta **FoxyK** for being willing to look up amputations to help me make it even somewhat realistic. (Because, who doesn't want realism in a story about the zomzom apocalypse?) This story would suck bunches if she didn't use her ninjabeta skills for the power of good. And last but certainly not least, to Jen, who you can blame entirely for this fic. I have no shame about dragging you into my fandom. :D

“Holy shit, Carl! Holy... holy _shit_!” Clem’s whisper was wrong. It sounded choked, like she was about to burst into tears.  

I jerked my gaze to hers, trying to swallow past the sudden, panicked heartbeat in my throat.  I looked around the alleyway to the building that Clem had hid behind to shoot the guards less than an hour ago.  One of the walkers I’d shot was still slowly crawling forward. I’d managed to take off half its skull, but the brain must have still been intact.

“Is. Is he...?”  Daryl sounded absolutely wrecked, and my gaze jumped to his. He had thrown the hatchet away, and was kneeling by my dad, his hand fluttering around like he didn’t quite know what to do with them.  

My dad had- thankfully- passed out.

“Clem, watch it. You’re too close to the fence.”  She stepped forward without question, keeping the temporary leather tourniquet tight around my dad’s arm, moving carefully so that she didn’t jar him but quickly enough that the fingers of the walkers reaching through the fence wouldn’t grab her hair or her clothes.  I was standing in the wrong place to see if he was still bleeding or not, but I didn’t think so.

“He just passed out, Daryl. Now come on. We got to get him back to Carol. To Judith.”

It hurt that my dad didn’t even know if she was alive.  

Clem looked at me. “Carl, I need you to take this. Don’t let up on the pressure, okay? We can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”

I looked down at Daryl, who had been worked over pretty badly, and my dad who... yeah. He probably wouldn’t be jumping up any time soon.  I tried to clear my mind of the shocked fuzziness, but it was a lot more difficult than I thought.

It had just... it had just been a really bad few days. I was afraid if I let my guard down, I’d start crying and not stop.  Still, somehow we weren’t dead, so there was still a chance. And if there was a chance, even a slim one, I’d take it.

We all would.

I walked over to the crawling walker, picking up the hatchet on my way and whipped it into its head with a satisfying _thunk_.  I looked around again, and saw that the fence was still holding up, but it wouldn’t for long. I took a deep, shaky breath and counted to five as I exhaled. I could lose my shit later. Right now, I had things to do.

“Clem, we’re going to have to all go to the truck. Can you make sure my dad is okay til you can work on him? Between my face and Daryl’s arms... and my dad’s hands, I don’t trust our ability to get out of a jam if that fence comes down. And if we’re going to move a little, we might as well move all the way, right?”

I also wasn’t too keen on the idea of her going alone to the truck, fighting off whatever the rukus brought- be it walker or human- by herself. I knew better than to say that though, although I highly doubted I was fooling her even a little.

“Daryl, you think you can move? You were using your arms earlier... you think you can make it if Clem helps you?”

“Didn’t hang there the whole time. First two days I was standin’ on the elevator,” Daryl mumbled, cupping my dad’s cheek.  “‘M fine.”

I looked to Clem, immeasurably grateful that we knew each other enough that I could read her expression, and she could read mine.

_Shock?_

_Yeah. Need to hurry._

I nodded and looked around. Weapons. Daryl had dropped the rifle and whatever else he’d taken out of my pack. I still had my gun and quite a bit of ammo, my knife, and the hatchet. Clem had her pistol, and her machete. We’d lost the shotgun somewhere. She’d probably tossed it when she’d run out of ammo for it.  My dad had another one of the Barettas stuck in his jeans... and that was it. Other than what we’d left with Jude and Carol- that’s all we had.

Still, it was plenty.

“Okay. Clem, you and Daryl are going to go first. We’re gonna have to tie off my dad’s arm so I can carry him.  We need to move quick, and be _smart._ Daryl?” He looked up and I could see that he was definitely in shock. His eyes looked glassy in the light of the fire. I wasn’t sure if that was from tears or a concussion. Still, he was here enough to listen, so that would work. “We’re about half a mile from the truck, but it’s through this crazy hodgepodge of buildings and alleys. You think you can make it? Be straight.”

Daryl nodded and I saw him clench his fist. Fresh blood welled up and I knew he was using the pain to focus. “Yeah. ‘M fine. We gotta get Rick safe.”

Clem spoke up.  “Either of you two got a belt? This is leather, and a bit too thick to try to tie off. Even rope would do.”

I shook my head. Daryl shook his too and I frowned, looking around the alley like a belt would just materialize out of nowhere. Daryl was _barefoot_ and didn’t have a jacket. Neither did my dad, for that matter. It was only about noon. Maybe two at the latest, but it was gonna get cold soon, especially if we moved away from the burning building. There was so much that could go wrong that a belt seemed like a-- oh. Oh. I was a fucking idiot.

“Here. Hold this.” Clem handed off the leather strap, showing me exactly how tight to hold it- which was pretty damn tight- Clem was no weakling, that was for sure, and I took over for her, keeping my dad from bleeding out by tightening the temporary tourniquet, still feeling like a moron.

Clem shook off her jacket.  When reached up under her t-shirt and I realized what she was doing, I jerked my gaze to the ground to give her a little privacy.  Neither of us said anything as she took her bra and tied it around my dad’s arm. She was ruthless with it, keeping it as tight as she possibly could and knotting it several times before grabbing a skinny scrap of metal off the ground and twisting the material impossibly tighter. She tied it in place with one of the straps and stepped back to view her handiwork.

“Okay. Slack up slowly. Let’s see if it holds.”  

I did as she asked, trying not to notice that the bra was purple and silky and.

Wow. What the fuck was _wrong_ with me? I shook off the thought, ashamed. Clem was trying to save my dad and I was.... Jesus _Christ._

Luck was finally with us.  It held. Thank god, it held.

“Okay. We ready?”

Clem nodded, putting her jacket and pack back on.  I wasn’t quite sure how’d she’d managed to get her bra off without taking off her shirt, but as this wasn’t exactly the best time to ask I’d probably never know. I’d have to chalk it up to one of those mysterious female things and let it go. She bent down and grabbed the green duffel, then helped to steady Daryl as he forced himself up, obviously in a lot of pain. She bent down one more time and slid my dad’s wedding ring off the still-twitching hand and put the small gold circle in her pocket.

Daryl’s mouth trembled, and I was terrified for a second that he would cry. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t care about any of that junk they used to care about- with men crying meaning they were weak or some shit. You try growing up with Michonne, and Carol, and Clem and see if you stick to any of those old-fashioned ideas.  But if Daryl started crying now, then I didn’t think I’d be able to keep from breaking down right the fuck now. I could feel it... the horror, the confusion, the grief just .... there. Almost close enough to touch. I was keeping it shoved away through willpower alone, and I wasn’t afraid to acknowledge that it was a slippery fucking slope. Hell, I couldn’t even look at the green duffel bag Clem was holding. Arvo had been so accepting, like he knew this was going to happen. I felt a sickening, squirming guilt at even seeing the damn thing- it was easy enough to push away, along with everything else.

Case-in-point:  Clem tossed my dad’s hand into the fire, turning to help Daryl with that determined look on her face that I knew so well.  

“Let’s go.”

I bent down and picked up my dad, thrown a bit by the role reversal. Even now it was impossible to think of him as ... small. Physically though, he wasn’t as muscular or as tall as I was. The fact that I could haul him up bridal-style was weird as hell.  I hefted him a few times, making sure that there was no possible way that I would jar his arm, or the silky purple tourniquet keeping him alive, and off we went.

I was glad Clem had been paying attention, ‘cuz I didn’t know where I was going. Not for certain. I had a vague sense, but Clem? She was like a trailblazer, making turns and climbing over blockages like a champ.

Every sense that I had was on full alert, and I’d never been more aware of my blind side and complete lack of peripheral vision. It was up to Clem and Daryl to take out any threat that we saw from where we walked, because it wasn’t like I could drop my dad and go for a gun in time. If something came at me from the right, then we were both toast. Even if I could, I still had problems with aiming quickly.  I mean, on the fire escape it hadn’t been a problem. I missed a couple of times, but once I got my aim set and my gaze focused I’d been fine. But I missed the kill shot on the walker I’d had to get with the hatchet, and _that_ was _unacceptable_.

I’d taken my skill with a gun and a knife for granted, and now its lack was absolutely terrifying.

We’d had to rest twice. Once, so Daryl could catch his breath, and once so Clem could ditch Daryl and run ahead to take out a few walkers that had wandered into one of the buildings we were cutting through, but we made it back to the truck without incident.  We were operating on a lot of blind faith.  It occurred to me halfway to the truck that we’d left a trail of blood between Daryl’s feet and his chest wound. If the truck had been gone, we would have been fucked, because Clem hadn’t taken the time to do first aid on Daryl. Daryl wouldn’t have let her, regardless.

Clem pulled off the walkers we’d used to hide the truck’s usability from any of the living that might happen across it, and we carefully loaded my dad into the backseat so his head was on Daryl’s lap, and Daryl was monitoring the tourniquet.  I hopped into the passenger side, and Clem the driver’s side.  Unfortunately for my dad, he woke up.

He fumbled for a second, like he wasn’t quite sure how he got there.  Clem started the truck as I twisted up and over the back of the seat so that I could help hold my dad’s shoulders.

He was staring at Daryl, his face twisted in fear.  Daryl wasn’t much better, pushing on his chest and cupping my dad’s cheek with one hand, talking to him low, trying to distract him.  My dad had his good hand wrapped around Daryl’s wrist and was staring up at him so intensely that I don’t even know if he knew Clem and I were in the truck.

I saw that he wasn’t going to try to rear up or do something stupid to fuck up the tourniquet, and slowly let up on his shoulders, twisting so I was back in my seat.

Clem had taken one of the back roads, and was driving calmly out of the area, heading towards the ASZ. We could have been on a drive, or a normal run before all this happened for all that she looked like she was panicking.  “You’re going to have to be calm, Rick. We’ll be back at the garage soon enough, and I can stitch up your arm. What’s your pain level?”

It took him awhile, but my dad eventually responded. “Can’t feel anything.”

I jerked my gaze to Clem, who was staring at my dad and Daryl in the rearview mirror.  She still looked a little pale, but I could see that was because she was concentrating.  “Well you will.” She didn’t mince words. “Between the surgery and... the fever, it’s going to suck.”

She turned left, then drove off the road to go around a bunch of stalled cars.  My dad moaned when the truck bumped up over the curb and I thought that if he was really only feeling a four then his balls must be made out of solid steel. But--- no. Wait. Hershel had said that it hadn’t hurt once they cut off his leg. Not right away, like his muscles and his nerves were so shocked they didn’t know what had happened.

“Carl, get in my bag. Get the morphine. It’s in the purple case.”  Clem leaned forward, and I went through her stuff on her back.

I knew the case she meant. Michonne had given it to her when she’d passed her med training to become a full-fledged nurse. Well, what passed for a nurse in our community, anyway.  She sure as hell knew more about anything medically than me anyway.

It was a purple lock box, set with a little padlock.  Michonne had said that back in the day she’d had one to keep her diary away from her big brother. This was modified slightly with some padding so that none of the syringes or bottles of drugs would be harmed. Clem leaned forward me, stretching out her neck. I saw the chain on her and felt my gut clench when I realized that she was wearing the necklace Daryl had brought her for her sixteenth birthday.  There was a tiny key next to the charm, and I carefully undid the clasp of the necklace with fingers that felt too big and clumsy for such careful work.

I unlocked the case and filled the syringe, pushing down slightly so that there were no air bubbles. I had to turn all the way around (In my head I could _still_ hear my mom yelling ‘Seatbelt, Carl!’) in order to get at my dad’s sprawled body.  I could see that he’d been full of shit about the pain. He was covered in blood, but a fine sheen of sweat had beaded up on his head and forearms.

I swallowed hard, feeling that burst of barely-restrained panic move slightly closer to the surface.  A fever. It could be bite fever, or it could be a fever from him _losing his fucking hand_ or. Oh _god_.

“Carl?”

My dad’s ragged whisper jolted me out of my head long enough to realize that I had been staring at his without really seeing it. I jerked my gaze up to his and blinked twice, tightening my hand so that it wouldn’t shake.

“You know how to do that right?”

I nodded, and did so. With the tourniquet, it was easy enough to find a vein and slide in the needle.  My dad closed his eyes in relief, although I didn’t know if the morphine had kicked in yet or not. In my own experience, it had made me high as a kite, but that might have been from the fact that our supply was technically expired. I didn’t know.

“Ohh,” he groaned, clenching his fist so hard that the nails dug into the flesh of his palm. “That’s gonna be better in a bit.”

I nodded, still a little afraid that if I opened my mouth to speak I’d just start blubbing like a baby.

“Hey... Carl?” He drawled my name, making it sound like _Carrrrrl_. It almost made me smile. “Thanks. I’d ... uh. I’d give you a hand but....” He looked down at his stump.

I swear to god no one breathed for at least three heartbeats.

“You. You.... _what_?!” I gasped, realizing that the sound I was hearing as Clem as she started giggling.  Daryl didn’t even bother with giggles- he was just staring down at Rick with a look of utter betrayal before rolling his eyes and looking out the window of the truck.  From the way my dad’s head rested on Daryl’s lap, he couldn’t see that the shitty joke he’d told had made tears spring to Daryl’s eyes.  I watched dad’s pupils expand as the drug took effect, before taking back the syringe and twisting back into my seat.

Clem had gotten control of her giggles-  the joke hadn’t really been _that_ funny, but the release of tension had done her worlds of good.  We both ignored the two in the backseat, giving them what privacy we could.

We were only about twenty minutes from the ASZ. It seemed absolutely surreal that three days ago we’d been driving back from a successful run, smug at our ability to scrounge for useful items, even after all the crazy shit we’d seen.   Three days ago, everyone I’d known, and everyone Judith had grown up with had been alive. Now...

I sighed.  

Clem nudged me with her elbow, and I turned to look over my shoulder. It hurt a little to turn like that, so I just turned my entire body, so that I could see Clem and my dad and Daryl in the back, depending on how I turned my head. Daryl was still looking out of the window, almost nodding off.  God knew when he’d last slept last, but he needed to stay awake until we got him and my dad to safety. I wracked my brain for a second, trying to think of something to talk about.  

“Hey, Daryl? What happened? I didn’t think we’d be able to get to you in time.”

Daryl blinked, turning to look at me.  I noticed that he was softly stroking his thumb over my dad’s good wrist, almost like he didn’t know that he was doing it. It made my throat tighten and for the millionth time I wished that I’d be able to find someone who loved me half as much as he did my dad.

“Was ‘n ambush. Shot. Tranqed- I think.  We saw that it was that little fuck, the one from all those years ago? Then we saw... we saw what they wanted us to see.”

I could picture it- the semi that took out the walls, the houses and community areas on fire, complete and utter destruction. From their perspective it had to have been even more terrible; my dad and Daryl had pretty much built up the whole thing from a disorganized mess of survivors. I just lost my home.  They’d lost everything they’d worked for for seven years.

“Judith is okay. And Carol,” I blurted, realizing all at once that Daryl didn’t know.

Daryl opened his mouth to argue, but I steamrolled over him.

“No, that wasn’t her. They set the scene, like a stage. She’s fine. I swear it. She was hiding in my old room, and almost blew off my head.”

Daryl almost bit through his lip. “Lil’ Asskicker is okay?” It was like he was afraid to believe me.

“She was when we left. Carol is banged up some, but she’ll be okay. You look worse.”

Daryl started speaking, so quickly that it was like he was forcing the words out. The raspy whisper was almost too fast to understand, but I turned so I could see his lips, and that helped.

“They kept me in between the floors, on top of the elevator. They made Rick watch as they’d cut me, to feed the fuckers on the floors below.  Made ‘em crazy. Made Rick throw pallets down, for them to climb. They used the generators, and would lower the elevator so I was hangin’ there like a goddamn side of beef.” He snorted. “Rick had to watch it. They were gonna... gonna do t’me what those women did to Monroe and his goons.” Every few hours, they made him hurt me. Just enough that we both knew they could make it last for days.”

He stretched his shoulders absently rotating his neck like he still didn’t believe he could.

“Yeah, well all of them are dead now.” I jerked my gaze back to Clem, watching her eyes narrow, and her knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “He was a bit surprised to see me again, but I made sure he knew who I was before I shot him. Gut shot.” She sounded grimly satisfied, and I winced, knowing that a gut shot hurt more than just about anywhere else.  When Otis had shot me so long ago, I’d been almost stupidly lucky. Through the bullet had shattered inside of me (I didn’t remember any of this but had been told, later.), it hadn’t hit anything major. There was some internal bleeding that Hershel and Patricia had been able to stitch up. But later, at the prison, one of the Woodbury people had been shot in the stomach. I don’t think I’d ever forget the sounds of his echoing screams as he slowly died.

I reached out and touched her knee, but I missed and my hand bumped a little higher on her thigh than what I meant to. I know I turned about twelve shades of red as I blushed, muttering “Sorry,” under my breath.

“Your peripheral vision still bugging you?”  She was nice enough not to say that she’d noticed how much she’d had to cover for me while I took longer to set up my shots, back at that building.

“Yeah.”

I heard a small sound from the backseat and saw that we were there, driving by the Alexandria Safe Zone.

Safe no more. The highway we were on was about half a mile away, letting out about where Clem and I had stopped on the little hill so long ago. It felt like hundreds of years ago now. I remembered my panic and terror and almost couldn’t equate that with what I saw as we drove by.

The ASZ was a dead place. I knew that, realistically,  there _had_ to be more survivors than just us.  We had had 82 people living there safely, and had to turn away people so that we didn’t strain our resources.  Abraham, Rosita and Tara had been in charge of the census, and they did an amazing job with keeping people informed of when they could take in more people.  Dad had been on the Council, and ... well. All of them hated to turn people away. In fact, that was why Clem and I were on such a long run, so we could try to stretch the resources we had to bump up the population to an even 100.

Seems kind of ironic, really. I guess that now there was plenty of room.

Clem accelerated, grimly keeping her eyes forward.

I rested my head against the headrest, feeling the exhaustion in my body. We drove quietly, listening to my dad’s steady breathing. Daryl occasionally shifted, trying to get comfortable, but he spent the rest of the trip stroking dad’s filthy, sweaty hair back from his pale forehead.   I stared dully out the window at the swirling snow. It had grown heavier as the hours had inched by.

We made the rest of the drive in an exhausted, overwhelmed silence.  

Clem couldn’t pull into the driveway because of the wire and cans we’d used to give us some kind of warning.  She parked the truck where the house used to be, the burned-out shell long destroyed and reclaimed by the plant life. From this direction I could only blink at Michonne’s grave. In the few hours that we’d been gone, Judith or Carol had fashioned a cross and put it up.

“I’ll go in. Get things ready. It would be best if he’s carried; keep him in the daze from the drugs as long as possible. “Give me five, then come in.”

I nodded, rubbing at my eye. Clem tossed me the keys, grabbed the purple case I’d been too numb to put back in her backpack.  I got out and crossed around the back of the truck to help Daryl out, then between the two of us, we’d manage my dad.  

It wasn’t easy. Dad’s legs were the consistency of overcooked spaghetti. His stump was seeping a little- the tourniquet must have slipped during either the ride here or from getting him out of the truck with neither him nor Daryl falling on their ass.

"I gotcha, Rick, I do." Daryl's mutter was heart-rending and all but completely full of shit. _I_ had managed to swing my dad up into my arms again, tottering a little as my sense of balance warred with my complete determination not to let either my dad or his partner down. _Daryl_ had staggered and had grabbed my waist and we made our very slow and careful way to the garage so that he wouldn’t fall over.

“Dad? _Daddy_?”

_Oh, fuck. Judith._

“Daddy! Daryl! What’s wro--” She cut off her words as though she’d used a knife to slice them from her tongue, her blue eyes widening in shock.  I watched as my sister’s face paled to an unhealthy grey and couldn’t do anything about it.

“Come on, sweet pea. Let Clem fix your dad. We need to stay out of her way, okay?” Carol gently pulled Judith to the side before she could fling herself at either dad or Daryl. Which was fortunate, because I was pretty that would send all of us falling to the ground in a heap.

“L-l-like when M-M-Michonne kept me outside so I wouldn’t see Clem fix Carl?”  

“Yeah. Just like that. And no worries- Clem fixed me right up, right?” I tried to make my voice as encouraging as possible, but it was hard. My sister wasn’t fooled either. In fact she looked at me like I was a complete idiot, then stomped out of the garage, her face pretty much wrecked with tears.

“Daryl, you sit here.” Clem indicated a chair that she’s pushed up near the wood stove. I noticed that she’d adjusted the mirrors to catch and reflect  the most light possible, and either her or Carol had put extra wood on the stove so that it was much warmer in there than we normally kept it. She looked at me and nodded towards the bed.

“Don’t worry, Carl. I’ll check on her in a bit. She’s probably up in the deer stand again.” Carol sounded distracted as she started peeling things off of Daryl, pushing him forcefully down into the chair when he instinctively started to go to my dad.

I nodded and set dad down on the bed.  Clem had scooted the card table closer to the bed, and covered the card table with one of our towels. She had her small bottle of diluted bleach, a bottle I recognized as iodine, and another as peroxide. She had placed a blanket on the mattress, and I set my dad down in the middle, turning so his wounded arm was closest to the med supplies.

“Okay,  Carol- you’re on Daryl duty. Clean everything. His biggest worry is dehydration and infection. Daryl, you’re gonna have to sit there and not freak out because Carol’s ribs are busted and if you hurt her you’ll feel even shittier than you do now.”

Daryl just stared towards the bed, obviously in shock.

“Alright, Carl you check on Judith and come back. I’ll have everything ready.... and we’ll do this.”

I love how she knew I wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate until I checked on my sister. She was right. I couldn’t remember if Judith had ran out of there with her jacket or not, but grabbed a blanket and a pillow and some extra ammo (Judith knew better to go anywhere without her pistol) and jogged outside.

Carol was right; Judith had gone for the deer stand.  Or maybe it was an unfinished treehouse? Either way, it was safe, with a pull-up ladder that was ideal for watching into the woods. We used it for an early warning system, but you could easily see in any direction if you stood up.  It was about twenty-five feet by fifteen feet, with a back and one corner finished. There wasn’t a roof, and the front and side furthest from the garage was open to the weather.  

Whoever had lodged here before everything went to hell had used this for hunting.  Now- what exactly they were hunting, I have no idea. Yeah, we were in the woods, but we weren’t exactly in the wilderness. DC and all its suburbia wasn’t all that far away. I think it had been a refuge area back in the day. It didn’t really matter. The owner, who had had quite a bit of money if the size of the garage was anything to go by, was long gone.  What did matter was that my sister was huddled up into a small ball of misery about twenty-five feet off the ground. I grabbed the ladder and pulled myself up a few rungs,

“Hey.”

She sniffed and looked down at me. “Dad’s hurt real bad, isn’t he?”

I handed her the ammo, and the blanket. She was wearing her coat, and I saw that she’d had some books stashed here from before. It was getting too dark to read, and I knew that the books would be ruined if she left them out here much longer, so I switched out the stuff I’d brought from the garage, and took her books, before answering. “Yeah. He is. But Clem knows what she’s doing, Judith.”

“I know.” It was a whisper.

I hauled myself up the last few feet and pulled her into a one-armed hug. She clung to me hard, and I kissed the top of her forehead. “You’re gonna hear him yelling.  Come in if you want. Carol might need you so she doesn’t puke. You know how she is with blood.”

Judith snorted at that, which was my intention.  Carol was terrifying when it came to that stuff. Once she ripped open her thigh on a fence, and not only stitched herself up without any medicine, she continued the conversation she was having while she did it.  Me? I would have fainted or something equally ridiculous.

“You have about an hour ‘til it gets dark, but if the storm comes in you come in quicker, okay?”

“Okay, Carl.”  She sounded more like herself.

“Okay I have to go help now. You’re good?”

She nodded and gave me a watery smile. I wished that I could stay with her, but I knew Clem would need me for dad. God, this was so unfair. She was only eight. Eight! Her whole world had just upended on itself and now her dad and the man she saw as her other dad were hurt. She needed me to...”

“I’m good. Just give me a sec, and I’ll be back.”

Well, maybe she didn’t need me quite that much.  I wouldn’t even be thinking of this, but the fence was strong enough. From up here, she could easily see in every direction before running down to the garage. It was about as safe as things got around here, and her being out here would probably be better for her in case.... in case things didn’t go well.

I nodded, then made my careful way down the ladder, jogging back to the garage, growing more and more nervous with every step.

Clem met me at the door, which told me that my stalling, even well-intentioned stalling, was up.  I looked over at my dad, who was blinking up at the ceiling and bit my lip.

“Hey.” Clem’s small hands tightened on my shoulders. She had to look back so that I could make eye contact with her, but just seeing the determination on her face helped. “We can do this. I’ll talk you through it.” She smirked.  “Just don’t pass out, okay?”

I nodded, then looked over at Daryl, who was sitting in his underwear, shivering as Carol dabbed at his numerous wounds with a rag drenched in something that made him wince in pain.  He didn't make a sound though.  

“Come on. Wash your hands. There’s water and soap over there. Take off your coat, and your flannel and make sure you wash to your elbows. Don’t forget your fingernails.”

I did, noticing that she’d used the bleach on the instruments. Diluted, it was a godsend for making sure things were clean.  I knew that infection was what would kill my dad if we weren’t careful, and followed her instructions as best I could.  The water was almost too hot to stand. I hated to waste that much, but Clem was in charge here.

“Okay, I need you to hold your dad’s shoulders. You’re going to have to make sure he doesn’t move, Carl. Carol?”

“Almost ready.”

“You and Daryl are probably gonna need to help hold him. Even with the morphine it’s gonna hurt.”

“Can’t you just knock him out?”

“No.”  

My dad’s voice caused all of us to turn and look at him, with varying expressions of shock on our faces.

“No, I need to be awake for this.”

I looked at Clem. She looked back, shrugging and said softly. “He’s right. If I give him enough morphine to knock him out it'll probably affect his blood pressure and breathing."

She walked back over, placing a folded leather strap between his teeth. It was almost a shock to realize that she’d already cut off his filthy shirt, like I was missing fairly large chunks of information. He’d been worked over pretty well. I could see an almost perfect outline of someone’s boot in bruises on his chest, and I tightened my hands into fists.

“Let’s go. Ready?”

I nodded, and made my way over to the bed. I knelt behind him, so that my dad’s head was in the vee of my thighs. I heard Carol and Daryl washing up, and tried not to worry too much about what was about to happen.  Clem had given me one job, and I could do that.

I _could_.

The boot print was raised in a mix of skin, like he’d taken a roundhouse kick or had been stomped from above or something equally painful. It made me want to kill those fuckers all over again. I’d avoided looking at the stump of his wrist until now.  The purple bra was mangled, covered in dried blood and tied so tightly that I knew Clem would have to cut that off too.  

Carol clambered over to my dad’s good side, holding his legs with all of her weight. Daryl did the same on the other, and we all tensed, waiting for Clem.  I put my knees on my dad’s shoulders, bracing myself against Carol’s shoulder with one hand, and using my weight to hold my dad’s good hand with the other.  I slowly tightened my thighs to hold his head in place, not particularly wanting him to start thrashing and nail me in the nuts.

“Rick?”

From the angle I was kneeling, I couldn’t see him look at Clem. She was facing me, and I could see her smile softly down at him.  

“This... is gonna suck. You ready?”

He nodded, tensing his muscles. The fact that he was lucid enough to do so was both terrifying and ... well... awe-inspiring.

“Okay- gonna clean it with water first. If there’s debris in it, I’m gonna have to get it out.” She’d set his wrist on some threadbare towels, and had brought enough water to clean it. I was kind of afraid she’d put a little of the bleach in the water, but was afraid to ask.  

Clem took a deep breath, and we all tensed, holding my dad down with all of our strength.  She poured as carefully as she could, but he still cried out, clenching his teeth on the leather in a muted scream. She worked for several minutes, picking out bits of things with the tweezers, then pouring it over the wound again and again, until she was satisfied it was as clean as possible.

“Okay. Breathe, Rick. Come on, that was the easy part.”

I heard the door open and Judith slipped inside, locking the door and arming the sound traps. She stayed well back, but I could see that her face was almost ghostly from where it stuck out of the blanket she’d wrapped around her.

“Antiseptic.”

I jerked my attention back to Clem and my dad. It was a good thing, too.  When she poured the iodine on his wrist, my dad’s whole body arched, twisting in pain. His scream would have brought every walker in hearing distance shambling up, if he hadn’t bit down on that leather. Even then it was still loud enough that Daryl made a small, choked off sound before he leaned forward, pulling my dad’s face so he wasn’t watching Clem work.

“Rick. Rick, you look at me. Right here.” He pointed to his face, and my dad let his head be gently guided. My dad kept straining against my hold, and honestly I don’t even think he knew what he was doing. I knew exactly what that pain felt like, only with my dad and his wound it had to be a thousand times worse.  Daryl though- _god_. The look on his face. It stunned me with it’s desperate, broken intensity. With how much he loved my dad, even now. Especially now.

Clem didn’t waste any time staring at my dad or Daryl. She didn’t notice Carol’s grim face, or Judith’s pale, terrified one.  She worked, stitching, stopping only to clean with water or apply more antiseptic.  Occasionally, she’d mutter something under her breath, and once she’d asked Carol for more water and the lantern when it got too dark for even the mirrors to pick up reflected light, but other than that she worked in silence.

Judith crept closer and closer to the bed, looking less panicked as she saw that Clem wasn’t panicking. Part of me was sad for her- that she had to watch this. When I was eight years old my life revolved around little league and Spongebob Squarepants. I hated that she had to be here, in this shitty garage in the middle of nowhere, watching what equated to battlefield surgery. I knew exactly what my dad felt when he’d made sure Judith could defend herself. At the time I hadn’t understood why he’d stormed out of the backyard after Judith’s first knife lesson.  My dad wasn’t really the type of guy who blew up like that. Or, rather, if he did blow up, then you knew damn well why.  

Stil... I suppose it was better than the alternative.

“Okay, Rick. That’s it for the arteries.” She huffed a breath and to my shock, held her hand out to me. “I need your knife, please.”

Somewhat bewildered, I handed it to her.  She turned completely away, hopping up off where she’d been straddling my dad to work and going to the water. I heard her washing my knife, and I felt my stomach lurch. I had a horrible suspicion of what needed to come next. They’d kept me away from when they’d stitched up Hershel, but sounds had echoed in the prison enough that I had known what was going on.

Clem came back and sterilized the knife, then climbed back onto the bed and my dad, facing the same way I was. I reared back, surprised. She kept my dad’s arm immobilized by using her knee on the swollen part, keeping away from the mangled-looking tourniquet. I guess I understood why; with my weight on my dad’s shoulders, it was hard for me to hold the actual arm without hurting him, but her moving that way had the added effect of putting her ass right in my face, and _that_ jarred me out of what we were doing so much that I was lucky I didn’t fall off the damn bed.  

My dad was passed out, thankfully.  

I felt like I had been punched. It wasn’t sexual, not for Clem, who thought of my dad as her own dad, or for my dad.... who was so crazy about Daryl that it was damn embarrassing eighty percent of the time. Or hell, even for Daryl who was staring at the three of us looking like he was terrified out of his damn mind.

But me? I had a _really_ difficult time focusing.  Her ass was.... Jesus _Christ_ , I was _not_ going to get a hardon while we were in the middle of a fucking amputation with my _dad’s head_ practically in my goddamn _lap_ , but.--

Clem was speaking, and I tuned back in, feeling filthy, like some creepy pervert.

“--have to hold him. This is.. this is gonna suck even more while I trim back the bone. Then,  I should be able to see if we take off the tourniquet. Then I can stitch him up.”

She made it sound so easy.  I heard a horrible, grating scraping sound, that made all three of us turn faintly green, and hastily avoid eye contact with both Carol and Daryl.  I heard a muffled s _nap_ of bone giving way, and a grunt, and suddenly my dad was fighting all of us, jerking and thrashing on the bed like he was dying.

“Shit! Hold him! Hold him! _Daryl_!” 

 

Daryl jerked in place, as though just then realizing that he hadn't been holding my dad's legs as well as he should have been. I saw the cut on his chest start seeping again as he caught my dad's other arm, pressing it back down onto the mattress. 

 

It took a second for my dad to lose his strength, and he eventually settled back down. Clem waited until my dad was trembling on the bed. “Carl, can you get his arm? I need to move again.”  My adrenaline was up, causing my hand to shake as I fumbled to comply. She moved around, knee-walking so she could go back to straddling my dad’s thighs, using her weight to keep him immobilized, taking the strain from both Carol and Daryl who looked exhausted, both from trying to keep my dad still and from their own injuries.

My dad groaned, and I pushed his hair back from his forehead.  I had to start twice before the word came out of my throat correctly. “Dad?”

I felt my dad nod, and eased back slightly with my hold, shaking out my hand. I’d been so tensed that my muscles felt wooden, and it felt good to move a little. Not too much. I didn’t want my dad to suddenly react and thrash around again. Some of the terror that I’d felt since ... well, since yesterday if I was gonna be honest with myself, drained away, and I blinked, feeling some of the adrenaline wear off.

Clem wiped her forehead with her shoulder, and her hat rolled off the bed and onto the floor.  She looked absolutely done, her eyes bruised and tired.  The stubborn jut of her jaw remained though, despite her exhaustion, and I could see that her lips were chapped.  

Then, of course, I felt like some perv for staring at her lips and forced my attention back to the matter at...  er. Hand.

I snorted, ducking my head, ignoring the weird looks from Clem, Daryl and Carol, and refocused.

“Here. Carl, hold up his neck. Rick, drink this, okay? It’s just water.”  

We both did as instructed, and my dad worked his jaw back and forth.

“Y’r eye’s fucked up.”

I froze at the slurred comment. The fact that _now_ of all times my dad could focus on me enough to ask me that sent me freezing in shock, like when he’d caught me smoking a blunt with Eugene behind the community depot.   Both Eugene and I had frozen, both of about ready to crap ourselves, only to have my dad ask for a hit.

I blinked a few times, pulling myself back.  I knew what shock felt like, and knew it wasn’t normal for my mind to be jumping around like this.

“I was shot.” I turned my head so he could see the swollen, still-bandaged skin on my temple. “Took out my eye.”  

My dad’s face crumpled a little. Weirdly, I felt guilty that I was hurt, like I’d let him down.

“I’m okay, dad.” I grinned at him a little weakly. “Or will be. Clem fixed me up. Like she’s fixing you up.”

“Love that girl.” My dad looked back at Clem, whose eyes watered up. “Keeps savin’ my life.”

“No more’n you’ve saved mine.”

“Alright. Now.” Clem took a shaky breath. The blade of the knife gleamed in the firelight, working carefully under the elastic of the bra, cutting it with one quick jerk of her hand. She held the ends together though, keeping it tight. ‘We’re gonna release this gradually. It’s probably gonna feel like the worst case of pins and needles ever, and your arm will probably throb quite a bit. That’s normal; the blood flow is just going back to where it’s supposed to be.” This is where things could go pear-shaped. I knew there was a chance the blood could pool behind the wound, or the stitches could bust or god knew what could go wrong. I knew that even with as careful as she was being, dad could still need to take more of his arm off because of tissue damage. And infection. Jesus, we’d lost someone bit on the calf to infection a few years ago.

No.

I couldn’t panic.  Either it worked, or we’d fix it. Those were the only two options Clem would allow.  It hadn’t been like Michonne, who’d hid her bite for hours. Daryl had cut off the hand as soon as Clem had tightened the tourniquet. Seconds. Surely that was soon enough... right?

I’d say a prayer, but I’d given up on a god long ago. If anything, I’d learned that you made your own luck. It might have been different before, but now? Now things were different. I watched numbly as she turned away for some thread, and I realized that she  was stitching up the end bits of skin. It didn’t take her long before she was reaching again for some gauze and wrapping up the stump. It was a little inaccurate to say that Daryl had taken off his hand at the wrist. It was a little further up, and covered with gauze, but I didn’t think I’d ever forget what that looked like.

She eased back with a deep breath, reaching for something small on the table. “Okay. Antibiotics. You’re gonna have to take it with food, and. Uh.”  Clem blushed. “This is a strong dose, and.. “

“I’ve taken a dose like that before. ‘M gonna have the shits, right?”

Clem nodded. “ Yeah. It’s gonna kill off everything in your gut, but it will also... well... you’re gonna be a bit sleepy for awhile. Daryl? Hold him up so we can clean up, then I need to bandage you up. Looks like that bit on your chest is gonna need a few stitches.”

The bandage Carol had hastily applied had bled through already.  In a way it was comforting that Clem had shifted to another patient. That meant that the most critical one was out of the woods for now. Since I wasn’t doing much, I eased back off the bed, cleaning up what I could. I put the empty kettle of water back by the stove, and shrugged my jacket back on.

We didn’t have running water here- it was amazing how quickly I’d gotten used to hot showers- so Daryl had rigged a kind of homegrown purification system.  We had the creek out back, and it suited our needs well enough. It just had to be physically refilled. We used a couple of those plastic water things that used to be in offices to hold and store water. That, at least I could do.  Carol went with me, both of us knowing that my dad’s screams had probably brought a few walkers to our vicinity. We didn’t even have to talk about it.  Even with her ribs, she was hardly helpless.  

I shook my head, shivering a bit under my coat. There were only four of them, milling near the truck. Two were caught in the wire from the fence, and the other two were just standing there in the snow.

Carol took two and I took the others, and we filled up the water bottles with no problem.  It was quiet. Neither of us spoke. Neither of us had to. She did snake one of her skinny arms around my waist and kiss me on the cheek, and I leaned into her for a minute, but that’s all we had time for. We had to get everyone settled, then I could fall apart.  Hell, at this point I was almost looking forward to it.

“Carl?”

“Hmm?” I stumbled a little on my way inside, but managed to get the water where it needed to go without sloshing it down my front. As tired as I was that was a major damn accomplishment.

“You should let me look at your eye while I have all my stuff out. I think, if it’s healed enough, you should try it without the bandages tonight.”

Oh.  I shrugged then sat in one of the chairs watching as Clem kind of hovered in front of me. Unwrapping my head took her only a few minutes, and I couldn’t help but look up at her, staring at her face for any hints as to how bad it was.  Without her pack, and her jacket, she looked much tinier. She didn’t have any weapons on her (although her knife was in easy reach), and the wound she’d taken to the forehead looked red and swollen. I wanted to kiss her. To lean my forehead onto her chest and just sleep.  

Some of that must have shown on my face, because she broke eye contact, focusing instead on the small, folded piece of material. The peroxide didn’t cause any pain, but the bubbles felt weird on the side of my face.  She wiped at my eyelid and I felt that there was something there. My mom used to call them eye crusties- evidence of the sandman giving you good dreams. I hadn’t had any good dreams in awhile. I was due.  I blinked, still weirded out that only one eyelid worked. Now, with the other uncovered, my face felt alien, like it was under someone else’s control.

Clem turned away from me, then back. She held out a mirror, and I stared at myself for the first time since I was shot.

The stitches on my temple were neat, the skin not puffy at all. There was no sign of infection, no redness or anything. It looked like any number of scars I’d had over the years. There was another spot on my cheekbone that she’d put butterfly bandages over. The skin there was stitched up just as neatly. I could see the path of the bullet in my stitches and the swollen spots on my face. My eyelid was the worst. It looked like something out of Frankenstien, and I could see where she’d had to stitch each side of it together. Here, the skin looked much less attractive, and I saw why she’d kept it covered. Still, there was no blood, and no goo or ... bits of eye hanging out, which is what I’d been afraid of.  I didn’t think I was a particularly vain person. Really. But... my eyelid was going to scar, as was my face, and my temple. This was really real, and I was going to remember all of this shit everytime I looked at my face.

“I didn’t sew the lid in case you wanted a prosthetic later. I bet we could find you one.”

Her voice was very soft, and nodded, bringing my fingers up to my face.  Clem knew what I meant to do, and popped my hand with hers.

“No. Mine are still sterilized. Don’t touch. I’ll do it.”

She batted my hand out of the way and pushed up gently on my eyelid, so I could see under it. I stared at the mirror silently for a few seconds before tilting my head back so she’d let go.

I knew that the bit of muscle I’d seen would fall off eventually.  From what I could gather, she’d handled it like tying off an umbilical cord. It was shocking not to see an eye there, and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d ever get used to it. Maybe later, when it didn’t look so... different.

I didn’t realize I was crying until she thumbed my tears off the corner of my eye. Her thumb was impossibly soft against my cheek. I swallowed hard and tried to move back further in the chair, horribly embarrassed. Ashamed. My dad had just lost his fuckin’ _hand_ , and here I was crying over my face. It was stupid.  I cleared my throat, and Clem moved back. turning to the table to give me some privacy.  I stood up hastily, wiping my face and still feeling like an idiot.

She cleaned up, and I went to get the extra blankets. There were several, and I knew we’d be grateful for them tonight.   I looked around the room. Judith was sitting in the corner, near the stove, blinking owlishly, like she was fighting sleep with everything she had.  Carol was already bunked down near her, curled into her blankets like a burrito. Her head was pillowed on one of the backpacks so that she could grab it in a hurry if she needed to.  Her eyes were shut, but I didn’t know if she was shamming sleep or not. My dad and Daryl were sprawled on the bed, curled together like a couple of commas.  Dad was curled into Daryl, resting his bandaged arm on Daryl’s hip. His face was pressed into the skin of Daryl’s shoulder and neck, and Daryl was pressing his chin into the top of my dad’s head. They were murmuring back and forth, and I realized that it must be beyond incredible that they were both still alive.  Some of what Daryl had said in the truck came back to me and I frowned.  That was something else we’d have to deal with. They hadn’t just attacked us, they’d actively attempted to fuck with my dad’s head. With Daryl.  On top of dealing with everyone’s deaths, they had to deal with the torture done to each other. Seeing them now, like this made me want to have Clem and Arvo kill them all over again. There was space for one more on the bed next to them, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to intrude. Daryl had the fingers of my dad’s right hand entwined with his.  It wasn’t that long ago that Daryl couldn’t even bring himself to be touched. Now? Those simple touches from my dad was obviously the only thing keeping him from losing his shit.

Clem tossed the worst of the bloody scraps into the grate of the woodstove, making a pile for things that she could reuse later. She flipped over the two main mirrors, and the room immediately darkened, then shut off the lantern and finished her routine by getting herself some water.

I stretched and took off my boots, checking again that the trap had been set on the door, and that the guns we had left were fully loaded, before hunkering down beside my sister, crouching in front of her. Judith blinked, focusing on my face. I didn’t move, almost afraid to scare her. Her jaw worked for a second then she flung herself at me, almost throwing me off balance. My arms closed around her just as gratefully. I was absurdly pleased that my face didn’t scare her. I don’t think I could I could have handled her being afraid of me on top of everything else.  

Not Judith.

Everything was quiet. We were all exhausted, and hurt in some way.  I put one of the extra blankets over Carol- I didn’t for a second think that I had managed to do so without waking her up- and left two for Clem.  We had yoga mats to lay on, so bunking down on the floor was a lot less uncomfortable than it could have been. Weirdly, my head was too full to go to sleep yet.  I put myself between the door and the fire, Judith snuggling up right next to me. It took a bit of shifting so that if something barged in, I wouldn’t have my blind side to danger, but we managed.

Carol had put herself nearer to the bed, and that left Clem to take the spot on the other side, closest to the stove.  Clem wrapped herself up in her blankets with her back to all of us. I know she’d lost her... friend? More than a friend? today, but I couldn’t be sorry. He’d known what he was doing. If he hadn’t, the walkers would have pulled my dad from the fence, and he’d be gone. As it was we almost didn’t save him. Fuck, we still didn’t know if we _had_ saved him.  I didn’t quite understand why Arvo would do that for a bunch of strangers. But, then again, Clem wasn’t a stranger to him.  She didn’t talk much about her past, really. Even after all this time. I knew vaguely that someone named Lee had saved her, and she loved him very much, and that later she and someone named Kenny had saved each _other_ , but that was pretty much it. All I knew of Arvo was that he had shot her years ago, they’d kissed, and he sacrificed himself to make sure she’d be okay. As sick as I felt from jealousy, I still had to respect that.

God knew I knew how it felt to love someone that much.

I breathed deeply, smelling the lingering stink of bleach and woodsmoke, and listened to my family breathing around me.  I noticed that Judith was trembling a little, and I can’t honestly say if tightening my arm around her shoulders was more for me or for her. She burrowed closer to me and I kissed the top of her head. It seemed bizarre that her hair smelled like mint with everything else that had happened.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispered, low.

My throat felt tight from tears. I just nodded and hugged her a little closer.

“Hey, Carl?”

I smiled a little. She’d said that to me as part of a bedtime routine for more nights than I could count. Even after I moved out, I still made a point of tucking her into bed, and she’d still wait up for me with her question.

“Hey, Jude?”

She made a pleased sound, like she hadn’t been sure if I remembered.

“Will you... sing my song?”  

And really, even though I knew there was no way anyone else was really asleep, if she needed comfort and wanted me to give it to her, then there was no way that I could say no. I mean, I know my voice wasn’t exactly anything spectacular. Judith never minded, but now with an audience I felt strangely nervous.

“Please?” I swallowed, and took a quick breath, singing loudly enough that she could hear me, but low enough that I wouldn’t get a pillow flung at my head.

“Hey, Jude...take a sad song... and make it better.”  

Judith sighed and her voice joined in. “The minute you let it under your skin...”

Yeah.  Not letting things under your skin was a constant battle. Our family was all we had. Now, we’d been attacked, and weakened. How do I help Jude not to get bitter from that? Was it even possible?

I sang a little louder, my deeper voice harmonizing with her higher-pitched soprano. “Then you begin to make it better. Anytime you feel the pain, sweet Jude, refrain. Don't carry the world upon your shoulders....”

I’d changed the lyrics enough that it made her smile, punctuating the ‘sweet’ with a kiss on her forehead. Usually, listening to music sung by a bunch of dead people was incredibly bittersweet. Music made us nostalgic,  made us miss the old life.  But it also let us forget this one for awhile.  I trailed off and heard what sounded suspiciously like a sniff from the direction of the bed.

“You should probably go sleep over there. Pretty sure there’s room.”

“Really?”

My dad’s voice was tellingly choked up when he spoke. “Yeah. Get on over here, girl.”

Judith jumped up and practically sprinted to the bed, only to stop short. She had her thumb in her mouth, biting nervously at her hangnail, obviously worried.

Daryl reached out to her and dad moved so his bandaged arm was out of the way, and Jude crawled into the middle of the two of them. My throat tightened again, and I had a second where everything was just about as perfect as it could be. I knew tomorrow was going to be rough. Everyone had tacitly agreed without having to say anything that we wouldn’t hit any of the emotional shit today.

Those three together... it was good. Better than good. It was everything, and it just made me realize that as far as I was concerned nothing much had changed.  

I would still do anything to keep them safe, so the three of them never had to be without each other.

And god help anyone who gets in my way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crap. I forgot an AN. Okay so I had to play fast and loose with the lyrics. I know they're not exactly right. So does Carl. So does Judith, for that matter. They don't care, and I hope no one else will either, as this keeps all interested parties safe from copyright infringement on the lyrics of "Hey, Jude" by Lennon/McCartney. XD


	6. Episode Six

I woke up with a face full of hair and a bladder that made it quite clear that I wasn’t gonna be able to just lounge around in my nest of blankets. It had gotten quite a bit colder during the night, and outside of my blankets that was real obvious from my cold nose and toes.

 

I blinked, trying to make my brain wake up. I immediately recognized Clem in my arms. I think that I would know her blinded in both eyes, in the dark. Her curly hair was in my face. It smelled faintly of wood smoke and iodine, and I indulged a moment, rubbing my cheek against the top of her head.

 

I wasn’t quite sure how she gotten here. When we’d all fallen asleep, Clem had been hiding in her own little area, away from both Carol and I. All of us were used to sleeping in puppy piles, either for warmth or for comfort, and the fact that she hadn’t wanted comfort had made me feel horribly confused. She would have had to purposefully moved into my blankets. We’d been far enough apart that she had to have come over here, eased inside my nest, and covered up with her blankets.

 

And I didn’t even wake up.

 

I eased myself back and tried to leave the blankets without letting in too much of the cold air. I think I was successful, because she didn’t wake up. I scrubbed my hand through my hair and looked around the small, shadowy garage.

 

The woodstove’s grate had been modified by Daryl and my dad. It was amazingly old fashioned, and Daryl had hemmed and hawwed about using that much cast iron that they should be using elsewhere, but the fact remained that the ancient thing worked better than any of the stoves we’d had. It sure beat an open fire. The grate in front had a triangle cut out of it so that you could see how low the fire was burning without having to bend over and get your face by the fire to peer in. The stove pipe snaked up and over a little, so that it went through the roof. There was even a little storm cap so that the smoke didn’t billow out and give us away to any humans that coveted the warm little bolthole my dad and Daryl had created for us.

 

The fire was low enough that I frowned, glancing over at the wood pile. It was really low. We’d been so busy, and the temperature had been cold enough that we’d used more than we normally would. It would need to be cut today.

 

Crap.

 

I shivered just thinking about it.

 

Carol was still passed out on the other side of the stove. Or at least she was faking it really well. I couldn’t see over by the bed, but I could see that no one over there was moving.

 

I guess it was a good thing that we’d all felt safe enough to sleep so hard, but the truth was... that safety was pretty tenuous. We might have had weapons, and ammo - I made a mental note to go through it later since I didn’t know exactly what we had-, but all of us were exhausted. Heart-sick. Dad was... handless, Daryl had been carved up like a turkey in between getting the shit kicked out of him, I’d turned into the one-eyed man, and Carol’d broken or bruised her ribs enough that she’d stayed to watch Jude. Clem had a few bangs and bruises, but she was... off. Understandably tense. Judith was Judith. Unharmed, and a bright spot to all of us, but she _was_ only a little kid, and she’d lost the only home she’d ever known horribly and violently. Her friends were dead. _My_ friends were dead.

 

It was hard to summon up the energy to do much of anything, but, my bladder made it real clear that I’d have to head out if I didn’t want to piss in our house. I mean, I could have done. We had a chamberpot of sorts. And I didn’t much care for the thought of that icy wind on my dick, thanks, but I also didn’t want to wake anyone else up. I grabbed my boots and my knife and shrugged quietly into my coat.

 

It was a test of my reflexes and depth perception to make it to the door, tiptoeing past people who had honed a hair-trigger skill of waking up ready to shoot. I managed to get the sound trap disarmed, and slipped outside quickly enough that I didn’t think I’d let in too much of the cold.

 

It was just a few hours before sunup. Snow had fallen in the night, and it blanketed everything in a light dusting that made it look deceptively peaceful. I made my way to the tree and yeah. I was right about the wind. I would be lucky if my balls didn’t pack off for a warmer climate. I decided that I could do a quick perimeter check, just to be safe. The creek was still bubbling away. It hadn’t been cold enough to freeze it. I carefully brushed the snow off the cross Judith and Carol had fashioned for Michonne, and kissed my fingers briefly, touching it to the topmost piece.

 

I heard a growl, and turned. The walker was ancient. It had decayed so much that I honestly didn’t know how it was even walking around anymore, but it was moving sluggishly, almost in slow motion.

 

The cold. Nice. I wasn’t enough of a weather whisperer to tell if it was going to get colder or not, but I knew I could ask Daryl once he woke up. I gripped my knife and kicked at the walker’s leg, using Clem’s favorite method of downing walkers to make it easier to go in for the kill. And it was easy. I hadn’t thought about them as ... well, _sad_... in awhile, but this thing was. Hungry enough to try to get to me, but too slow to be a real predator. It was more of an annoyance than anything else.

 

I wiped off my knife in the snow, and made a mental note to string the walker guts around the fence. With the few Carol and I’d killed last night, it would be plenty. It would stink, but it was a damn effective method of keeping them away from us. The more they decayed, the more they smelled like walkers, and the more it kept ‘em away.

 

I ducked through the fence to go to the driveway and check on the truck. It didn’t look as though our ride through the city or back here had hurt anything. Tires were still good. I didn’t know how much gas we had, but Alexandria would have plenty, if it hadn’t all burned. My gaze caught a small flash of green in the white, and I blinked, reaching down to pick it up. We’d been so frantic, that I’d completely forgotten about it. Arvo had shouted at me to keep Clem safe, and had taken the precious few seconds to throw this over the fence. Whatever was in it... he’d thought it important enough to make sure it was seen, rather than use those seconds to get away.

 

Well, fuck. Whatever good mood I’d been in evaporated like water from a pan.

 

I trudged inside, leaving the sound trap off, since I knew people would be going in and out.

 

There wasn’t enough sunlight up yet for the mirrors to catch. That had been another something Eugene had rigged, looking faintly shame-faced, mumbling something about ‘that mummy movie.’ It worked fine if it wasn’t too overcast, but it wasn’t ideal. It worked best when we knew exactly where the sun was, and adjusted the mirrors in that part of the room to best catch it. When we had a fire, we just opened the grate to help. Or we left the door open. None of those had been possible last night though, and the sun wouldn’t be up for at least a half an hour.

 

I made my way to the corner and found a candle. It was easy enough to light from the stove, and I took off my coat and made myself comfortable. I knew I should see to breakfast, but people weren’t up yet, and I didn’t want to fuck with it, honestly. I hated cooking.

 

From the light of the candle, I unzipped the duffel, and took out ... a journal? I frowned, reaching in, even holding the candle up so I could check the lining. There wasn’t anything else in there! No food, or ammo, or other supplies. Just an old journal that he’d put inside a plastic bag.

 

Weird.

 

I opened the bag and took out the journal, flipping it over in the light. It was comprised of three small composition notebooks, kept together with a rubber band. Written on the topmost was the number one. I popped off the rubber band, and looked. The second one was two and the third, three. They also had Clementine’s name on each of them.

 

Guiltily, I jerked my gaze to her, but she hadn’t moved from my blankets. Well, our blankets I guess. I licked my lips a little nervously and opened it, keeping the candle as close to it as I could without burning it or me. The handwriting was like something a kid would do, with words misspelled and written how they sounded. Still, I couldn’t bitch. His English had been better than my Russian, and I didn't’ imagine there were a lot of opportunities to practice. I opened the first notebook. There were only a few pages in it, like it had been written in over the course of several days, maybe even years, and the pages carefully cut out. It was the kind of notebook that had the pages attached with string, and I could see that he had carefully cut out the pages he didn’t want.

  
  


_Natasha,_

 

I frowned. Who the hell was Natasha?

 

_I do not wish to do this. There is no life without you here. My protector. My sister. My friend. I have done terrible thing. I write to you now because I cannot write to her. I wish with my heart that we had never decided to go with Alec’s group. They were terrible men, and you were right. We were terrible people with them. Still, they had the medicine you needed, and for that I would endure much pain. Yesterday, I shot a girl. I shot her because she shot you. I did not know until Bonnie told me, that you had turned into one of the dead ones, and had I stayed with you my last thing seen would have been your cold eyes as you eat me. As they say, joke is on me. Bonnie and Mike have left with the supplies we stole from them. I do not know if I wish to live in this world without you beside me. It is hard, Natasha. It is a hard, cruel place._

 

My eyebrows crinkled. This was... his diary? Well, edited, so Clem would read only certain parts, but jesus. With three journals, how much did the stupid bastard write?

  
  


_Natasha,_

_I am like animal. With broken leg, I move slow. With nowhere else to go, I find others and steal food. I kill many people. You would hate me. I hate myself too._

  
  


_Natasha,_

_I dreamed of you tonight. I cried so much. I wonder if mother is okay, and if our uncles, but how could they be? I had to find more clothes, as I had grown out of the clothes you found for me. I keep my jacket and use it as pillow. It smells terrible, but you bought it for me, and I will not let it go. Many weeks have passed since I was left by Bonnie and Mike. I did finally track them down. They had found a small diner and a small group of people. They were very stupid. I am skinny, half crazed, but I am very keen with my knife. I do not feel as I thought I would. I thought after they were dead, I would feel better. But it just made me sad._

_Tasha,_

_I am sick. Not bite, but coughing, always coughing. Perhaps this will be the time we will finally be together._

I couldn’t read the rest on that page. Either tears, or something else wet had made the pencil that was light to begin with run together with the paper. There was one more page, and I turned it, pretty much deciding to throw the whole mess in the fire. Clem didn’t need to read this shit. But then, I caught a glimpse of her name on the page and held my breath as I read.

 

_Natasha,_

_I do not understand. I am bad. I have done many terrible things, but somehow I am given a chance to make better. As I write this, It is almost unbelievable. CLEMENTINE IS ALIVE. I did not believe it either. I thought my eyes play tricks. She was driving a small red, cart. There was man tied to the back. He look very bad. Sick. She drove right by me as I hid in a car. I wanted to follow, but many dead ones had me trapped. Some went after her, but the cart was too fast. By the time I escaped, I did not know which direction to go._

_But, she is alive. My most terrible thing, the thing that I can never forget... is not so terrible. Natasha, I do not understand how God can help me now of all times. But I have much understanding. I have not been allowed to join you until I erase my sin. This is the last note I write to you. I will fix. If Clementine is alive, then I will fix all of the bad things I did, with good. I will come to her and beg her forgiveness. Then maybe I will be allowed to see you again._

 

I sighed low. Jesus Christ. The second book had several pages. I scanned through, reading as Arvo joined group after group, attempting to ‘fix for Clementine.’ He talked about good people and bad people. If the group was good, well then he would stay a night, a week, a month at the most. He would help them with whatever they needed. But, if they were bad, then he would systematically murder them. Men, women and children. It was... it was horrifying, actually. Fucked up. We didn’t worry about stuff like serial killers anymore, but occasionally we did get someone who wasn’t right. A sociopath, or even a psychopath. It was a bit of a stretch to judge someone else for killing, but Arvo hadn’t just killed. He was like... like a vigilante or something. He played as judge and jury, and reveled in executioner.

 

And he did it all for Clem. He addressed each letter to her. He was proud of what he’d done, like a cat who killed birds for its owner, and sat nearby waiting for a scratch of approval behind the ears.

 

There were even a few passages that caught my eye, that made me feel even more sick to my stomach. Fantasies. Blood-soaked, dark and twisted stuff where Clem took his life right as he was...

 

I looked away from the book, fighting not to react. I darted my gaze around the garage guiltily. These were... _god_. I was disgusted... but guilty, too. Was I any better with my own dreams and thoughts about Clem?

 

Arvo’s letters weren’t just creepy. It read like a love letter. He was obsessed with the idea that only Clementine could save him, could forgive him enough to reunite him with his sister. But... he only hurt bad people, so... I have to admit that I wasn’t entirely certain that he was doing the wrong thing.

 

Feeling incredibly skeeved out, I opened the third notebook. Part of me was hoping that he’d confess to making all this shit up. Part of me was afraid of what else I’d find. This book was much heavier. All the pages were there, but only a few had anything written on it. As I flipped through the pages, a folded map and a small picture fell out. It was a polaroid, and I looked at it with confusion before setting it aside.

 

_Clementine,_

_Your friend Kenny is an unpleasant person. I make a confession; I did not believe that it was possible to hate someone so much. I have many scars from his beating. My fingers trembled on the rifle, and I had almost squeezed the trigger when I remembered that he had been with you when we stole away in the night. What if he knew where you were? I could not take that chance. And then, the most amazing thing happened. The man I had known was violent. I knew only pain from his fists, fear from his voice. Yet... a small boy came out and interrupted us. I would not kill the devil if innocents were there to bear witness. Kenny came to me like we were friends, apologies on his lips. He welcomed me as a friend, and I spoke of seeing you so many years ago. The change that came over him was... I do not have words for it. He begged me. He begged me to find you. He said that AJ was ill, and couldn’t travel, or he would go himself. He explained how you disappeared, and how he believed you dead, then explained where he was. With this, I knew my final purpose. How could you not forgive me if I reunited you with your family?_

 

My eyes widened, and I looked again at the picture. There was an older man, with a black beard shot through heavily with silver. He had a craggy face above the beard, the face of someone who had lived a hard life. One of his eyes was sunken in slightly, and it looked like something had hurt him pretty bad on that side of his face. Maybe a stroke or something. He was smiling at the camera, and it was easy to see he was either recently crying or had just started. There was a little boy in the picture, with his face smooshed against Kenny’s. He looking up at Kenny like he’d hung the moon.

 

Seeing that made my throat tighten. Just like that, I knew that Arvo had to be telling the truth... or at least part of the truth. There was only one more note in the journal.

 

_Clementine,_

_I have found you! At last, after so much time. I have even seen your face again, briefly. I wanted to go to you, but no. Is not time. I was not able to join your community. They were turning away people because there were not enough supplies. This too, must be preordained; I have much to do here, because the people I am with are very, very bad people. One day soon I will scrape the courage to speak to you and share these journals with you. I will take you to Kenny and Alvin Jr, and be the reason you are reunited with those who love you the most. Then perhaps, you can forgive me. Then perhaps, I can be with my sister. Perhaps._

My heart did something funny in my chest. I couldn’t stop staring at the words Arvo had written: _reunited_ with those who love you the most. My hands clenched on the map and the pages in the journal. I gathered the everything up and turned towards the fire, only to stop short. No. No, I couldn’t--

 

“Carl?”

 

Clem. I shut my eye, shame a bright burst of red in my chest. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t _possibly_ be there with her when she read all that, when she learned that Kenny and Alvin were still out there... somewhere. I jumped up so fast my knee hit the table, sending it crashing down onto the floor with a loud _thunk_. The candle rolled off onto the floor, the flame guttering out from the wax.

 

“Carl? What’s the matter?” the sleepiness had left from Clem’s voice. Now she sounded concerned, and the guilt I was feeling balled in my gut.

 

“Nothin’. Here. You need to read this. It’s from Arvo. I’ll just be.. I gotta...” I dropped the journal on the table, then grabbed my coat. I stumbled as I almost ran out of the garage. We kept the axe and the wood saw we used just inside the door, and I barely had the presence of mind to grab them as I made my way outside. I didn’t even bother with my coat. I left it on the porch, and went to back of the property, near the creek.

 

I stood there, breathing heavily. This was it. She’d read it, and leave, and... I couldn’t do anything but be happy for her. I hefted the axe, and started chopping a downed tree. The wood would probably be a little wet from the dusting of snow, but it would dry out soon enough, and we’d be able to burn it.  I was working as quickly as I could push myself. My hand eye coordination was a little off, but I was able to manage by shifting my body and using my shoulders.

 

I felt disgusted with myself for my first instinct- which had to protect Clem. I can’t honestly say if it was more disturbing to read the loving detail of all the people he’d killed, or if it was more disturbing that he wrote them expecting Clem’s approval.

 

I’d almost burned it, burned the proof of where Kenny and Alvin Jr. were. That wasn’t protecting her. That was me being selfish, and _that_ disgusted me more than anything.

 

I heard her before I saw her. Above the _thunks_ of my axe driving into the small, dead sapling, breaking the wood into smaller pieces, I heard the furious crunch of boot heels as she walked through the thin crust of ice on the ground.

 

Aw, _shit._

I had the presence of mind to sling the axe handle in the wood of the tree, just barely turning around before her momentum carried her right into my space.

 

“You absolute fucking bastard.”

 

She didn’t even yell. She didn’t even have to. She sounded so betrayed, like I’d done something unforgivable.

 

I almost had.

 

“You... You...” She was so very mad at me that she couldn’t even formulate what she wanted to say. My own throat tightened when I saw that her eyes were wet. She wasn’t crying, not yet, but... God. I don’t think I’d ever made her cry before. “What’s _wrong_ with you... you... _jerk_!”

 

“I’m sorry, Clem.” My whisper was shaky, quiet in the woods around us.

 

“What part exactly are you sorry for?” She crossed her hands across her chest. “For almost burning... for. For reading something meant for _me_? For trying to hide the fact that someone I love could be alive? For abandoning all of us in there and making enough noise to ... hafucking _ha_... raise the dead? For coming out here without any backup? What?”

 

I swallowed hard. All of those things were true, but it was the ‘someone that I love’ that stuck in my head, like a dry piece of toast in my throat.

 

“Look. I know. I know you’re gonna leave, okay?” I blurted out the words, my brain not quite on the same page with my mouth.

 

She gasped, eyes narrowing.

 

“I understand, alright? I’m sure we all will, eventually, but I’m begging you to just give us a few days. Just until my dad’s back on his feet.” I shifted from one foot to the other. She opened her mouth, then closed it. I winced, knowing I had about three seconds to get this out before she lost her temper. “I don’t have an excuse, okay? I’m _sorry_ I just... the stuff he wrote! He was fuckin’ _crazy_ , and my first thought was to keep you from that.”

 

Even saying it out loud made me like crap.

 

She sucked in a quick breath. “You really think that I would leave? Leave Rick? Or Daryl? Leave _you_?”

 

Her words ricocheted around in my skull for what felt like a few minutes while I stared down at her. I couldn’t quite parse out when we’d gotten so close, but I could feel the huff of her breath against my neck.

 

“You really are incredibly stupid.”

 

Clem yanked on my shirt, pulled me down to her height, and kissed me.

 

I froze, shocked into stillness. Her mouth was hard on mine at first, punishing. Then the kiss changed, easing up on the pressure, her lips not moving while she waited for my reaction. I couldn’t. I mean... _what_?

 

Clem was kissing me and I was standing there like a complete dumbass.

 

She moved away from me, face flaming red, eyes downcast at the ground. She’d just opened her mouth to say something, to apologize maybe, when I finally got over myself, tilted her chin back up and kissed her back.

 

This time no one remained frozen. My skin must have been faintly cold, because she shivered. The hand that was still clutched in my shirt tightened, like she thought I would stop. The other reached to cup my elbow.

 

I stepped forward once, then again, until I had backed her up against the tree nearest to me. With my other hand I tilted back her head just slightly, my mouth moving over hers. It was sweet, for all that it lit up every nerve in my body. But when she licked at the seam of my mouth I can’t quite say what happened. Any thought of rationality was gone. I kissed her back, lightly flicking my tongue against her lips before meeting her tongue with mine, stealing breath. Clem wrapped the arm she’d used to cup my elbow around my neck, trying to bring me closer to her. Our heights were just far enough apart that she had to stand up on her tippy toes, and I had to bend my neck. I heard the breathy little moan she made in the back of her throat and immediately decided that was my favorite sound ever. I moved my hands from her face, down to her waist flexing my fingers against her hipbones. Breathing was overrated anyway.

 

Clem might have been a little shy, or a little nervous at first, but she quickly took over the kiss, and it was my turn to just stand there, shivering with a complete inability to quite believe that this was happening. I felt myself start to harden in my jeans, the sense memory of waking up with my hips snuggled behind her all those mornings making me gasp a little for air. Clem ripped her mouth from mine, tilting her head back against the tree, staring up at me with eyes that were half-lidded. Her lips were swollen, and I had to have more. I bent back down to kiss her again, exploring her mouth with my tongue. We traded kisses until I felt drugged with them. Her hands were on my waist, then low on my back so they almost clutched my ass. Clem’s hip bumped my erection and I groaned. She pulled back again, managing to look both stunned and a little mischievous as she deliberately bumped me again, longer this time, pressing into the hardness she felt there.

 

I gasped at the shock of sensation. I was fully hard now, my dick throbbing in the confines of my jeans. Clem’s hands slid down and pulled me to her, so that I bumped against the softness of her stomach. No... that wasn’t quite... I brought my hands to her ass, cupping it and lifting her, using the tree to brace her weight.

 

She moaned low at that, and cried out when I was able to rub myself against the core of her. Her legs wrapped around me, and Clem jerked her arms up to my shoulders for balance, staring at me for a second with wide eyes. I tried to blink the fog away long enough to ask, “Okay?” The word sounded too low for my throat, and I was unbelievably relieved when Clem kissed me again in answer.

 

She was so hot, throwing herself into the kiss, that I felt a little overwhelmed. I mean, I’d kissed other people before, but it hadn’t ever been with anyone I was so gone for. I thrust against her and we both gasped. I moved my kisses to her neck, making her shiver again in the cold air.

 

“Did you and Arvo kiss like this?”

 

I almost didn’t recognize what I’d blurted, until the words hung there in the air between us. Her legs dropped from my waist, and she pushed on my chest hard.

 

“ _Fuck. You_.” She pushed again at my chest and I stepped back another step. She had a light dusting of snow on her hair, but she looked mad enough that for a second I thought it it would probably turn into steam.

 

I bit my lip, trying to gather my thoughts. It was a bit hard to go from ‘i just had your tongue down my throat’ to this.

 

“Is that why you kissed me? Couldn’t stand the thought that you weren’t first?”

 

My eyes narrowed. “Maybe. Maybe I just wondered how you could do that while you were supposed to be helping me at my dad’s place. Maybe I was hurt that you didn’t just _tell_ me. I mean... I thought we told each other _everything_ , Clem.”

 

I think the fact that I was being completely honest is the only thing that kept her from ducking away from me.  I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, and continued. “And yeah. I was jealous. _Am_.”

 

She swallowed, hard. “You don’t think I don’t hate myself for it? Especially now? Knowing that he...” She frowned. “Regardless, you don’t get to make me feel guilty for decisions I made. Those med supplies saved your ass. _And_ your dad’s.”

 

I nodded, scrubbing my hands over my face. I was shocked not to feel the bandages over my eye. Wait. Clem had kissed me.... looking like.... what!? Some of that must have shown on my face because the expression on hers softened a fraction.

 

“Carl, I--”

 

“Carl! Clem! We need you. Hurry!”

 

From one heartbeat to the next, we were both back in reality. She and I shared one look of horrified shock- god, we’d been so fucking _stupid_ to make out like that in an unsecured area- before looking around a little frantically.

 

We were very fortunate that there were no walkers in the vicinity. Shit. I’d been so focused on Clem and my dick that I wouldn’t have noticed if ten of ‘em had danced by doing a can-can.

 

Carol’s call was louder than her normal speaking voice, but not quite a shout. _She_ wasn’t dumb enough to lose her sense of place. Ever. Carol always knew the danger, and respected it. Clem went to the left, and I followed her, grabbing the handful of wood I’d managed to chop and the axe.

 

“It’s Rick. He’s not doin’ so hot. Come on.” Carol’s face was grim.

 

At that my own heart spasmed in my chest. I knew without Carol saying anything: a fever.

 

I stopped in place, unable to move, much too cowardly to step over the threshold and into the garage.

 

I watched as Clem walked right over to my dad, pushing Daryl aside without even thinking about it so that she could get close to where she needed to be. It was almost the exact position she’d been in last night before she’d had to straddle his legs to sew him up. My dad was muttering, turning his head restlessly from side to side, still asleep.

 

Oh _Christ_.

 

“Carol, I need my bag. The thermometer is in the makeup case. Judith, I need water and rags. I put some on to boil before I went outside, so it should be good. Carl, I need snow. Ice if you can find it. Daryl, will you please sit the hell down before you fall over and I have to treat your ass right here next to him?” Clem sounded downright testy, and I don’t think I could blame her. Daryl was hovering, incredibly pale under his bruises. His face was almost unnaturally blank; the Daryl from the road who just like all of us, saw horrible thing after horrible thing. Eventually, you just stop processing it. At least until you dream, anyway. Clem reached over to adjust one of the mirrors, so it caught the faint light from one of the holes in the roof.

 

We all scrambled with our orders. The first thing I found to hold snow was a frying pan we’d used. It was cast iron, and heavy as fuck, but it was also clean and big. I turned on my heel and ran to the outside garage door, looking for icicles from the eaves. There weren’t many, but I took what I could. There were little pockets of snow on the porch steps, but most of it melted when I touched it. _Shit_! I turned, and saw the truck, still covered by a fairly good-sized amount. I ran over and started scooping it from the hood into the pan, coming back when Clem called my name.

 

Clem took the pan from me and scooped some of the ice into the water Judith had brought. Dad was blinking up at her, drowsily, eyes glassy with fever. Still, I guess no one ever forgets the feeling of having a thermometer in their mouth. It was good that he didn’t fight her, or the weird feeling of it under his tongue.

 

“Can’t you just put the ice on him? Like an icepack?” Judith is probably the only one in the room who could have gotten away with that question at this moment in time. Clem was not known for her patience when people argued with her.

 

“Can’t sweetie. That would feel too cold to him. Gotta bring his temp down first.”

 

“Fuck. Is it...?” Daryl ran a shaky hand through his filthy hair.

 

Clem whirled on Daryl. She actually advanced forward on him, looking like the tiniest Amazon in all her fury.

 

“You will. _not_. panic., Daryl Dixon. It could be anything from infection to allergies from the antibiotics. You really think I don’t know what bite fever looks like?”

 

She turned back around, boot heels clicking on the concrete. She might have gotten her mad up, but her hand was gentle as she took the thermometer from my dad’s mouth, squinting at it.

 

“103.” She handed it back to Carol, who put it in the makeup case. The digital thermometers hardly worked anymore, so the find of the old-fashioned mercury thermometer was a good one. We had to take care of it though. Clem had often grumbled about having them roll off a table after some careless intern at the med center had set them there, not thinking.

 

“Carl, we’re gonna need water. Lots of it. Jude, get the firewood from your brother. Daryl---”

 

“I ain’t a damn invalid. I c’n help Carl. Damn, girl, when’d you get so bossy?”

 

“When you two took me in.” Clem grinned at him, unrepentant. I hid a small grin. If we’d been alone, I would have high-fived her or something. Managing Daryl Dixon should have been its own college course, back when we had colleges. Clem was a firm believer in not coddling people. I’d seen her nag people with bullet wounds to get to work, and not lay around ‘like a damn swooning maiden.’ But... hint to Daryl that she thought he was too hurt for work, and that man would climb a damn mountain just to spite her.

 

I played my own part. “Well... if you’re sure, Daryl. It’s cold though.”

 

He just glared at me and limped over to get his boots on. It took him a couple of tries to manage his sweater over his shirts, and I inwardly winced when I saw how much the bruises had darkened in just a few hours. He was obviously more sore than he’d been. I caught Clem’s gaze again and she turned away from me. I swallowed hard, everything from just a few minutes (was it really only a few minutes ago?) coming back with a vengeance.

 

Nothing had gone away- it just got pushed to the back burner while yet another crisis was dealt with. I walked over to the back of the garage and grabbed two of the water containers, leaving one for Daryl. He was moving slowly, but he was moving. I knew he’d bring it along. We made our way outside, towards the back of the creek. Both of us looked around as was our habit, checking that we were safe before we made our way back there. I had a horrible sense of deja vu as I helped Daryl to the creek. Last time I was here, it had been Michonne helping a freshly wounded me, and I had the bizarre urge to cry at the memory.

 

I don’t think I’d really cried in years, really. What was the point? It didn’t really change anything.

 

“I’m gonna clean up.”

 

“Let me get the water first. You know that you’re gonna freeze your ass off.”

 

Daryl snorted, but I could tell he was too preoccupied for any sort of real conversation.

 

“It’ll give us some time to catch up.”

 

I felt my shoulders curve in a bit. There was literally so much to tell him that I didn’t know where to begin. But then I caught sight of the cross not too far from us and knew what I had to say. Abraham had the genius idea to dam up the creek and cut out a huge chunk of the creek bed so that our water containers would fit in easily, rather than us trying to awkwardly fill them. Once they’d broken the dam, a smaller bit of the water bubbled over some rocks, making a natural faucet. We usually used it for washing up, but it made filling up our water supply quite a bit easier. I stuck them to the side, gesturing at Daryl to go ahead.

 

Daryl stuck the soap on the rock, kneeling to wash his hair. I watched him dully, alternating between staring at him and looking around the area for trouble.

 

“Your eye hurt?” That’s gonna scar somethin’ terrible.”

 

I shrugged. “She had to take the eye. I think the rest will heal up well enough.”

 

Daryl froze, staring at me from under his wet bangs. He’d stripped down as best he could, washing as quickly as possible, shivering almost hard enough to drop the soap and shampoo onto the creek bed. “Shit....”

 

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I’m okay. Lost a lot of my timing, and my peripheral is for shit, but I’ll get it back with practice. Jude, Clem and... and Michonne got me out of the ASZ.” I took a deep shuddery breath, noting out of the corner of my eye that Daryl was carefully washing, looking off into the woods. I doubt that he was seeing much of anything. “She... she was bit. Fought like hell to get us here, make sure we were all settled before she finally told me.”

 

“Sounds like her.” His voice was wrecked.

 

I knew telling my dad was going to be the absolute worst. He and Michonne had been close, just as close as Daryl and my dad, although in a slightly different way. I didn’t for a second think that my dad hadn’t seen the grave, or knew why she wasn’t with us to bust him out of that warehouse, but until he asked we could all avoid it. Until we were safe enough for all of us to mourn, to remember her in our own way it would have to wait.

 

“And you and Clem? Bit of... tension there?”

 

I rolled my eye. “It’s being handled.”

 

He snorted at that, and I couldn’t blame him. His bullshit meter was damn near unsurpassed. “Funny. She didn’t sound too happy with you when she stomped outta here earlier. Not gonna ask how you ... handled it.” He waited until I looked at him and touched his neck. I echoed his movement on my own neck and turned bright red when I felt that the skin there was a tiny bit bruised, and hot to the touch.

 

“You think we should be headin’ back?” I don’t think my voice had been been pitched that high since I hit puberty.

 

Daryl snorted and shook the water off his body. He’d kept his bandages as dry as possible, and he winced getting back into dirty clothes, but I knew he felt better for all that he was almost literally freezing his ass off.

 

He shoved his bare feet into his boots (I completely empathized with him there; filthy socks were the _worst_.), and hauled up one of the containers of water. I only took one, preferring to keep my hand free if I needed to shoot anything. I could always come back again later.

 

He stopped me just outside the door.

 

“Look. You know that this is gonna be tough just now, with all of us on top of one another. You and Clem though.... that’s...” He actually smiled a tiny bit. “That’s been happenin’ for longer than you even realize, kid. Trust me when I say I know the signs of unrequited feelins... on _both_ sides. You best talk to her, okay? It took both ‘Chonne and Carol to smack some sense into me ‘n’ your dad’s head, and now all you got is me.”

 

I blinked, waiting.

 

“‘Cuz Carol’d remove your balls for you if you hurt that girl.”

 

I winced. Funny thing was- we both knew he wasn’t exactly exaggerating.

 

Clem popped her head out of the door, taking in the much-cleaner Daryl and the water with a distracted nod.

 

“Come on. I want to bring that fever down. Daryl, bring the soap over here please.”

 

Daryl and I both shared a look, content enough to be given our marching orders. Judith and Carol had seen to food, and the fire was built up enough that I knew that I’d be out cutting more wood again later.

 

Clem had lukewarm rags on my dad’s head, and I could tell that she had checked and changed his bandages from yesterday. He was still shirtless. It didn’t take her long to give him a sponge bath, and I tried to watch her as unobtrusively as possible. I watched as she took care of my dad, watched as she made him drink, watched as she had me and Daryl help him to the bathroom. It was a very long few hours, but when my dad’s fever broke... and stayed broken, I don’t think I was the only one whose eyes were wet.

 

If he’d been infected, the fever wouldn’t have broken.

 

I escaped with Judith into the woods, making sure we both were armed. She kept watch for me, as I caught up on chopping wood, both of us ignoring the other one’s slightly hysterical gasps, or in my case, the tears that streamed freely down my face. I knew she wasn’t ready for comfort- not yet. She’d have it when she wanted it. My sister was as prickly as a thornbush when she thought someone was babying her.

 

But for now, I could lose myself in the tedium of survival, pathetically grateful for Clem and her willingness to do anything for my dad. I just... I just didn’t know if she’d stay with us, knowing that Kenny and AJ were alive. She’s mentioned them so little, but it was always with the kind of love that hurt to talk about. I didn’t know how our rag-tag bunch compared, really.

 

Someone once said that if you love something, you’ll set it free. I snorted at the thought, catching the weird look Judith threw my way at the sound. Set Clem free? Fuck that. I was going to do everything I possibly could to convince her to stay with us. That meant taking out a bunch of shit- not really my best thing, but I guess it was time for me to stop being an idiot.

 

If that was possible.

 

No more being a jealous jerk, no more running around like I didn’t have people counting on me, no more treating Clem like she’d done something unforgivable. I’d been punishing her for something that was none of my business, and I was damn lucky she was even talking to me.

 

I sighed, handing off the axe to Judith and gathering up the first load of wood to bring back to the house. The snow had stopped, and I looked up at the cold, clear blue sky.

 

Maybe there was a chance I could still fix this.

 

Maybe.

  
  
  


TBC!

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only two chapters left....


	7. Episode Seven

Even acknowledging that we all needed some time to lick our wounds, none of us were of the temperament to manage to keep still for very long.

 

Judith used our time in the garage to practice cooking.  I say ”practice”, because some of her skills were not that great, but she wanted to learn, and none of us had the heart to say no to her.  Everyone ate what she made, carefully not making eye contact with either her or one another while we shovelled the food in our mouths. How it could be both burned and raw in the same meal was not something I was going to ask.  Judith might be small, and physically she hadn’t reached the double-digits for her age yet, but she also usually hit what she aimed at.

 

I heard the low whistle and looked down from the deerstand.  My dad stood there, looking up at me with his head cocked. The beard had already made a return, but it was so damn good to see him up and around again that mountainman-esque facial growths were the last thing on my mind.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Any sign?”

 

I shook my head, and dad made the universial ‘come here’ gesture.  I looked around again, but the walker activity had been pretty slow. The cold was nice. The little bit of snow we’d had had already melted, but the air was cool and crisp enough that sucking in a deep breath made my sinuses wake up, like they’d been shocked.

 

“You come in for dinner.”

 

I froze in the act of swinging my leg down. “Uh... actually, I’m not all that...”

 

My dad snorted. “Daryl cooked. Rabbit.”

 

Oh. Well in _that_ case...  I hurried down the ladder, smiling at my dad kind of shamefacedly. He smirked at me and nudged my shoulder with his. It was such a _him_ thing to do that I had to stand there, blinking a little too quickly. I realized that since Clem and I came back from our run, we had been going so hard and so fast that we hadn’t really been able to focus on any of the smaller things.  

 

It was those things that turned this from just surviving to actually living.

 

I wrapped my arm around my dad’s shoulder, finding it as weird as I always did that I was now both taller and bulkier than him. He hugged me one armed, and that too was strange. Not bad... just different. I wondered if it was for him, too.  “You doin’ okay?”

 

“I’m out here, aren’t I?”  Dad cleared his throat and pulled away. We both just stood there for a few minutes, the silence comfortable in a way it hadn’t been in awhile.  In the four days since dad’s fever had broken, he looked and acted a lot like I remembered from before. Clem’s surgery had been true (there had been one instance where dad had busted some stitches and bled through the bandaging but it had been easily fixed). Other than that he’d healed up a lot nicer than any of us had had any right to expect.  He wore a sling and kept making enough hand jokes that Daryl had threatened to ‘cut the other damn one off for fuck’s _sake_ Rick’ if he didn’t shut up.

 

Course with my dad that was like waving a red flag in front of a bull... which brought me to the real reason I was out here on the deer stand keeping watch until Carol and Clem get back.

 

My mama didn’t raise no dummies.  

 

“Yeah. Thanks for comin’ to get me.”

 

Dad’s lips twitched behind his beard.

 

“Yep. You have enough of this lone gunman shit?”

 

I sighed. See, the _other_ benefit of sitting here and having nothing to do but shiver and watch for walkers is that I was able to really think. And what I was thinkin’ was...

 

I was a class A asshole.

 

I’d had my head so far up my butt when it came to Clem that I’d be lucky if she ever spoke to me again.

 

“Y’all gonna eat this or just stand out there and talk about eatin’ it?”  Daryl poked his head out of the door, sounding downright testy.

 

Dad rolled his eyes and walked inside, kissing Daryl on the cheek as he went by.

 

Daryl visibly thawed. He looked after my dad with his version of a goofy grin, which was the one-sided smirk thing he did with his mouth.

 

When I walked by, I kissed him in the same place, just to be a dick.

 

“Euuurgh!” Daryl pushed me away and laughing, I stumbled inside the garage.  Judith gave me a faintly filthy look for interrupting her book, and I yanked her little stubby ponytail in the way of all big brothers everywhere.

 

Daryl had cooked the rabbit with some of our grits, and had managed to flavor it with something that  made it taste so good that it should have been illegal. I don’t know what the hell he did.

 

Maybe I was just hungry.

 

I went to the stove with the idea of helping dad get a plate, but he’d managed just fine on his own. I bit my lip, my eyes jerking from my dad’s missing hand, to his face, and back to the floor.  

 

Daryl set the sound trap since no one was outside, and dished him and Jude up some of the food.

 

“How long ‘til they get back, you think?”  Judith spoke through a mouth of food which wasn’t cute, but since she’d just voiced exactly what I’d been thinking, I couldn’t call her on it.  Carol and Clem had decided to go to scavenge Alexandria, to see what was still usable. There was a decent chance that a lot of our supplies were still there given that most of the residents had either been killed or had fled for their lives.  Clem had also wanted to check and see if the stuff we’d found on our run was still there.  Dad had made the comment that we’d just about filled this place to capacity, and as much as he was grateful for the garage that kept us alive, he figured it was about time to move on.

 

I was both nervous and terrified at the idea of leaving this place. It had been sort of a purgatory; a place to recuperate as much as we could, given how many of our people we mourned and how hurt we were. Leaving meant that Clem would have to make a decision on whether she’d go with us, or go find Kenny.

 

I huffed out a slow breath. “Not sure, pipsqueak. They went in slow and wanted to scout as much as they could. That would take time.”

 

Judith nodded and finished her food.  “They’ll be okay though, right?”

 

I tried to ignore the sudden tightness in my throat. “Yeah. They’re both tough and smart.”

 

“Yeah. I heard Clem tell Carol that she needed to leave for awhile though. Why would she want to go?”

 

The grits suddenly stuck in my throat. Once again, I found myself staring at the floor.  My dad and Daryl’s stares were weighty enough that my shoulders sunk under their combined weight.  The easiest answer, and the one that kept coming to me while I sat outside on watch, was that I’d managed to push her away. I couldn’t say that though, especially not in front of my little sister, so I shrugged.  I think I was finally at the point where I needed the advice of my dad and Daryl, but it wasn’t something that I felt comfortable asking for.

 

“Hmmuhn.” My dad made that thinking sound that usually meant he saw right through any and all bullshit. “Just wanted to take care of us is all, sweet pea. Now, I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been askin’ to be involved on watch for the past few days.”

 

At the reminder Judith looked sulky, eyes narrowing in a glare. “Yeah! I totally _could_ do it too, if you didn’t baby me so much. It’s just waiting outside! I can help if you--”

 

“I know. And here’s the deal. If you can make yourself nap for a few hours, I’ll let Daryl take you on watch with him. If he’s convinced that you can handle it.... well. I guess it’s about time you had some responsibility.”

 

Judith opened her mouth and grinned so wide we could see the food she hadn’t swallowed, but I don’t think I’d ever seen her get her food bowls cleaned so quickly. She almost hopped over to the bed and curled up in it.

 

Daryl looked at my dad rolled his eyes.

 

“What? She can handle it. We’re fairly isolated here. There’s the barbed wire and the sound traps; she can yell and you’ll be with her.” Dad shrugged. “It’s not like you’re gonna let anything happen.”

 

Daryl’s face tightened into the almost-blankness that meant he was feeling a lot.  Over the years, my dad and Daryl had worked past a lot of their shit. With his background, Daryl had never been very demonstrative, and sometimes my dad’s instinctual need to either protect or tendency to ignore things if he didn’t know how to deal with them had gotten them into some sticky situations.  I don’t think I’d ever forget that time that Michonne had come back without Daryl- who’d been trapped under a collapsed building for the better part of two days.  My dad hadn’t been... he hadn’t been what anyone would call _functional_ during that time, and I knew from when dad and Clem had been caught in the mudslide, that Daryl was absolute shit without him.

 

He and my dad’s eyes met, and I felt like an outsider for even being there. I envied them so fucking much, and felt so guilty for it. I just.... I just wanted that with Clem so badly.

 

Daryl cleared his throat, and looked down at his rabbit. Message received: dad still trusted him with his kids.  Not sure why that was a news flash since Clem and Jude had called Daryl dad at some point in their lives (Judith usually when she wanted something but it completely counted) but it was easy enough to understand that that was something that Daryl was never gonna feel comfortable about needing.

 

“She’ll be out in ten minutes, then we can all talk. You look like you need it.”

 

It was my turn to nod. That was an understatement.

 

“Thanks,” I whispered.  We finished our meal in silence, and Daryl cleaned up. I went out to chop wood again, more for something to do than for any real need for it, and both dad and Daryl joined me out there a few minutes later.

 

I sighed and sat down on one of the dead trees.  Daryl slouched against the same tree that Clem and I had ... er.. kissed against, and my dad joined me on the fallen tree.

 

I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling miserable.

 

“So...”

 

I opened my mouth, then closed it. I literally did not know where to start. With Arvo? With losing Michonne? With losing _everyone_? With how fucked I felt with only one eye? With how I’d been acting?

 

Dad used his hand to balance himself as he stretched his legs out on the ground. Daryl was carving something into the bark with the tip of his knife, and I started to feel even more like a moron as the silence grew.

 

“I kissed Clem.”

 

I blurted it out, cringing a little, waiting for them to erupt in anger and disgust. What I didn’t expect was the knife tip to stop scraping, or Daryl’s snort, or my dad’s quiet ‘ha’ under his breath.

 

“Sorry kid. That supposed to be a shock?”

 

“Hell, I was half out of my mind with fever and I figured that out.”

 

Oh.  Heat flooded my cheeks.

 

“Now you wanna tell us why she hightailed it outta the cabin to find you? Can’t say I’ve seen her that pissed off since that new nurse was found trading the group’s meds for food.”

 

I sighed. I didn’t particularly, but I also did so it was a bit annoying either way.  “Well. It could be because my first instinct after reading that shit that crazy fuck wrote was to burn it so Clem wouldn’t be... drawn into it. Even knowing that he told her Kenny was alive, I felt like it was my job to fix it. Then I kissed her, or she kissed me, fuck. I don’t remember but it was... and then... and then I asked her how well I compared to Arvo. Who she was apparently fucking  making out with while I was looking for you guys at the zone.”

 

My dad’s eyebrows had been climbing during my speech and I knew that while most of the time he didn’t judge me, he also loved Clem like one of his own, so I was kind of nervous.

 

“Jesus, kid.”

 

Dad brought his hand up to itch at his forehead, a habit he did when he was trying to figure out how to say something without pissing anyone off too badly, then winced and rolled his eyes when he remembered he didn’t have a hand.   

 

“So... you .... _shit,_ son. You’re a damn idiot, you know that right?”

 

I huffed a breath. “Yeah. And it’s not like I meant any of it. I don’t really think Clem needs to be protected- she can handle most stuff better than I do. And it’s none of my business who she kissed before me, even though I want to fucking hit him- even _though_ I’m so incredibly greatful to him for what he did for us.”

 

“Uh huh. And how you gonna make sure Clem knows you’re sorry? You _are_ sorry, right? That’s what all this angsting around was about, yeah?”

 

Daryl snorted and I wanted to glare at him, but knew I deserved to be made fun of.

 

“Of course I am.”

 

“You love her?”

 

Both dad and I turned, almost in perfect synchronization, staring at Daryl while he carefully chipped something in the tree. I could see a curve, and something straight, and wanted to roll my eye at him for being so ridiculous. It was a heart.

 

“Yes.”

 

Daryl nodded. “‘s easier when you c’n say it for yourself. When you own up to it. “Cuz nothin else can completely fuck you up in a way that makes you act like someone you don’t recognize, then at the same time  make you feel like you can fix anythin’.” Daryl wasn’t looking at either one of us, but I was pretty sure my dad was listening just as hard as I was. “You fucked up, kid. Not so bad that it can’t be fixed, but you gotta be willing to tell her all this. Ain’t a way to really get past it unless you talk it out.” He shrugged. “Clem’s a good kid. She’s not about to stick with anyone who can’t give her less than what she deserves.”

 

“What if she wants to go to Kenny and leave us?” My whisper was shaky and barely audible. I was a coward, and somehow putting words to the thing that was scaring me the most made me feel nauseated, like I was about to puke.

 

“If she wants to go, then one of several things are gonna happen.” My dad’s voice was just as low as mine.  “Either she goes, by herself. That’s one thing.” Dad sighed. “Shit. I really can’t blame her. She’s talked a lot about Kenny, and how much she feels like she owes him. I can’t speak for the guy, but I can’t imagine what he’s going through, knowing she’s out here and wondering if she’s safe, or happy, or ...” He cut himself off, sighing again. “Next is we all go with her.” Dad swallowed hard, and the sound was loud in the quiet evening. It would be dark soon, and I kept trying not to hope that Carol and Clem would show up so that I wouldn’t be disappointed when they didn’t.

 

“And I guess last is... if it’s what Clem wants... that just you go with her.”

 

Daryl’s knife stopped mid-scrape. I think my own heart did too. I blinked a little too quickly, shocked that my dad would even suggest it. Me... leave? Leave dad? and Daryl? And Jude and Carol?

 

“Not that I want you to. Shit, no.” Dad reached out for my arm, gripping my bicep like he needed to be grounded. Since I felt like he’d just knocked me over after punching me in the balls, I appreciated the gesture.  I know that I was grown, but the idea of going at this all alone- without my family- was simultaneously heartbreaking and terrifying. I felt like a baby bird being pushed off the branch into the waiting jaws of a hungry wolf.

 

I stood up, pacing back and forth as I thought.  I could feel my dad and Daryl looking at each other behind me, so I wandered off, checking the premises for anything. As I walked, I breathed deeply, enjoying the crispness of the air. I made my way past Michonne’s grave, rubbing my fingers softly over the cross again, near the side of the garage, checked the fences and sound traps, and made my way to the door.  Dad and Daryl had obviously decided that talk time was done, that or Daryl wanted to rest some before he went on watch with my sister.

 

Once inside, I looked around, going to the lanterns so that we had plenty of light. My dad settled down at the table, and we hauled the boiled and dried bandages over towards us.  Clem had said that soap and water was fine for my eye, but I should make sure to flush it out twice a day with water. My dad had to apply some of the antiseptic cream to his stitches before bed, and change the bandages if anything looked bad. Dad checked my eye, that little flicker of sadness at its loss present as always in the line between his eyebrows, and I did the same for him, checking for infection or the red streaks under his skin that would tell us that something wasn’t healing right.  The stitches were due to be removed soon. If nothing else, I knew that they’d be back for that.

 

Our routine was boring, but comfortable enough.  Judith and Daryl snoozed while dad and I straightened up around the garage. The sheets and blankets were getting a bit whiffy, but there wasn’t much I could do but hang them outside and let them air dry. It wasn’t like I had a basket of Tide and some Downy sheets tucked away in my backpack.

 

I pulled the map Arvo made to me, staring down at the circled spot.  He had written some notes in Russian, but it was easy enough to see where the place was. There were two circles on the map, both in Ohio. They weren’t terribly far from one another, maybe forty miles or so. One was near a place called Wellington, and one near a tiny village called Bakersburg. Both were near Lake Erie, and from what my dad had said, both were probably under several feet of snow right now.

 

I closed my eyes, wishing that somehow I could give this to Clem, to take away the stigma of me trying to destroy it so selfishly, and of Arvo wanting to give her this for his own crazy sense of redemption.

 

Sleep, when it came, was fitful and full of half-remembered nightmares.

 

*****

 

When I woke up, it was to the feel of someone’s hand cupping my cheek. There was no slight sense of enjoyment as I lazily swam out of sleep; but one second of _someone’s touching me_! to _knife_!

 

“Just me.” Fortunately, Clem had her weight pressing on my wrist, stopping the movement of my weapon before instinct took over.

 

My whole body relaxed into my pallet on the floor. “Hi.”

 

I looked up into her light brown eyes from only a few feet away. It was impossible not to remember how she tasted, or how sweet she’d felt against me.  Amazingly, her face relaxed into a grin.  

 

“Hi back.”

 

Her hand slid from my cheek to my chin, and back up to lightly scratch at my scalp. My eyes fluttered shut in appreciation, my skin tingling with hopeful anticipation.  That’s why it was a complete shock when she fisted a handful of my hair and yanked.  My body arched in shock, not entirely sure if it liked that or not. Clem leaned forward, pulling my hair to move my head so that her mouth was down by my ear.

 

“You are a dickhead, Carl Grimes. You’re lucky I like you so much. Rick told me what you guys talked about.”

 

I had just a minute of panicked betrayal that my dad had told her that I loved her before I could. Before I remembered that my dad barely talked about his _own_ emotions, let alone anyone else’s.

 

“That you were worried I’d just up and leave you guys. That you were trying to protect me.” Her grip shifted so that She was looking at me from only inches away, sitting on my stomach.  She leaned forward a bit and grabbed my hands, holding them to the floor and linking our fingers together over my head. She was still straddling me, and I was afraid that if she moved back even a little, she’d feel exactly how much my body was confused by all of this.  Her legs and feet were bare, and the shirt she was wearing as a nightgown had barely covered all the important parts. She was an almost negligible weight against me, but braced as she was, I wasn’t about to move.  I’d woken up with that split second of confusion, and either that or the fact she was on top of me, or the pain from having my hair pulled or just hearing her voice in the dark had me hard in my jeans.

 

“I told you this one when we were kids: Stop. Trying. To. Baby. Me. I don’t need you to try to save me, Carl.”

 

“I’m not sure I can stop.” My whisper caused her to nod thoughtfully, still pressing our linked hands into the concrete floor. “But... I’m trying. I am, Clem.”

 

She nodded again then bent down to kiss me. I froze, suddenly aware of our audience. I knew my dad and Carol were somewhere in here with us, and even more importantly, so did Clem.

 

I think if I could have melted into a puddle of goo I would have done. The kiss was everything that our previous kisses hadn’t been. It was sweet, and left me with a feeling of hopefulness that somehow, _somehow_ I hadn’t managed to fuck this up too badly.  That she wasn’t just giving me another chance, that Clem was into me just as much as I had been into her.

 

Maybe I was dreaming.

 

Clem pulled away and tugged my arm so that I was curled around her.  I had just enough of a presence of mind to keep my hips from her butt, so I wouldn’t start humping her like some creep. I blinked and raised my head, noticing that the bed was empty, and Carol and My dad were talking quietly in one corner of the room. I had bunked down on the opposite side of the fire, so with their backs to me and the fact that they were determinedly ignoring the both of us, I felt weirdly appreciative for what privacy they could give us.

 

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now, though. I could feel that her skin was slightly cool from the frigid washing up she must have done, and her hair was still a little wet.  It was obvious that if we were attacked, she’d be the last out of the gate, but I’ve also seen her get dressed in ten seconds flat and roll out into danger with guns blazing so I wasn’t too worried.

 

Still, with my dad and Carol in the room, my poor dick wasn’t sure what was going on.  On the plus- I had a clean, cuddly Clem right in front of me. Her skin was quickly warming where it touched mine, and when she pulled my other arm so it came around her hip I was glad for the darkness of the garage because I know my grin had to be bordering on completely goofy. I’m not sure why she liked this position so much- but this was the third time we’d tangled together like this. I felt like the hero in all those old movies we used to watch in Alexandria, the ones where the guy gets the girl right before the credits roll.   

 

Only those guys didn’t have quite the audience that I had.  That would be the only thing even slightly negative about this.   

 

Clem inched back just slightly so that the curve of her butt pressed against my pelvis and I couldn’t possibly hide the punched-out, utterly turned on groan of sound I made.  

 

My dad and Carol’s sudden silence was incredibly loud. I hid my burning face in between Clem’s shoulderblades, amazed that I had any blood left anywhere in my body to use for blushing. Especially when I heard  the sound of chairs scraping against the floorboards, and their calm, measured footsteps as they left the garage.

 

Clem wasn’t helping at all. Her whole body was twitching as she held in her giggles. It made me want to hang onto her more tightly, so I did.

 

I was very, very grateful for the blanket, although I didn’t fool myself for a second that either of those two didn’t know exactly what was going on under here. Out of the four of us, I’m pretty sure I was the only one still confused.

 

“They left us alone, Carl.” Clem whispered as she snickered through her giggles. “Isn’t that nice of them?”  She moved again, tangling her bare legs with mine. I was still partially certain that I was dreaming, so I just lay there like a dummy, following Clem’s lead.  It struck me then, that she’d been the first to initiate our first kiss, too.

 

I swallowed hard, tentatively moving my hand up to her chest, lightly brushing my fingers over one breast.  Clem froze for a moment  then melted back against me, arching into my touch.  I could feel her nipple pebble under the thin cotton and I idly traced my thumb around it in lazy circles, moving my lips from the center of her back up to the center of her neck.  I could feel the slightly damp skin break out in goosebumps.  I scraped my teeth over the topmost bump of her spine, then licked at the small hurt.  Clem gasped.

 

“They’re not gonna be gone long.”

 

“Long enough,” she whispered back. “Just... I want you to touch me.”

 

I didn’t think I’d ever heard something that made me feel so much like preening and at the same time like I’d just been given a gift.

 

“I wish I didn’t have to hurry. Or to be quiet.” I moved my hand again, cupping her more firmly. She was so soft against me, and every time she twitched her hips against me made my own arousal tighten painfully. I moved my hand up her chest to her neck, to cup her cheek, and back down, exploring the soft skin of her belly and playing with what I could reach of her breasts. “I’d take forever, Clem. Hours and hours, and make you feel so good.”

 

She shivered at my low voice in her ear, and I could feel that she was holding her breath. Clem had been so confident up until now that the idea that I was overwhelming her just a little bit made me feel like a king.

 

“You’ve done this before, then?” Clem’s question was just as soft and breathless as I felt.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Oh.” Clem moved her hand so that she could touch my stomach, and at her touch we both scrambled so that we were facing each other under the blanket, just barely enough light in the room from the banked fire to see.

 

Clem bit her lip, and I could see that she was curious. Given how much of a dick I had been, I figured that I needed to tell her what she wanted to know, even if she didn’t ask.

 

“On my twenty-first birthday, Rosita and Abraham gave me a ... uh.... helluva present. And I’d fooled around a bit before with Angelica and Enid.”

 

Clem licked her lips, then leaned forward and kissed me. I kissed her back until the only sound in the room was the wet sound of our mouths, and the soft sound of us shifting closer under the blankets.  

 

“I ... haven’t. So if I’m doing something wrong you have to tell me.”

 

It was my turn to freeze, pulling away for just a second to stare at her, blinking.  “You... uh. Never?”

 

She pushed my hand down so that it was low on her belly, my fingers barely brushing against the waistband of her underwear. “Nope. That a problem?”

 

I snorted. “Only for my poor body. If you’re this sexy going on guesswork, once you have actual experience, you might kill me.” I teased her a bit, tracing one finger over her covered center, then moving back up to right under her quivering belly. “You’re sure that you want...”

 

Clem unzipped my jeans and reached inside, her small hand cupping my covered cock.

 

It was my turn for my eyes to flutter shut, and from there I was a lot more confident. I mimicked the movement of her hand, dipping inside her underwear to cup her heat. I bent down to kiss at her nipple and Clem arched towards me, bringing her hand up from where she had cupped me to cover her mouth.

 

The voice in the back of my head kept telling me to be gentle, to not scare her, but the louder voice screamed at me to get over myself, to do as Clem had asked and quit babying her. She moved her hips, and I was glad that she wasn’t touching me anymore, afraid that I’d go off in a second at the feel of her competent little hand wrapped around my length. I maneuvered us so that she was on her back, and I wiggled up her shirt so that her breasts were bared to the tiny bit of light from the stove, and my own hot gaze.

 

“Christ, you’re beautiful.”

 

Clem smiled at me, but made a ‘come on come on’ motion with her hand, which made me snort a little laugh. I ached to taste her, but knew that my dad and the rest would only stay outside for so long.  Giving us privacy was one thing, but it was damn cold out there.  It was easy enough to stretch out again beside her, kissing her lips with deep, drugging kisses that would have been so easy to lose myself in, but I didn’t want that this time.  I wasn’t naive enough to think that I could apologize with my cock, or in this case my fingers, but I did want to see her fall apart. I’d both imagined what she’d look like and completely believed that she’d never want me to touch her that way.

 

She made a soft sound when I slid one finger into her folds, sliding under the leg elastic of her panties so I could touch her properly.  I kissed down the side of her neck as she gasped for breath.  She was slick and I could feel the tightness of her walls cling to my finger as I moved it, slowly, letting her get used to having something inside of her body. I was expecting there to be some resistance. There had been for Angela, but Michonne had also told me that not all girls’ were made the same, and that as long as I was going slowly and that my partner wasn’t in pain, then I was fine. I pulled away for a second to help her get out of her underwear, before setting them aside.

 

I moved my lips down to her breasts, timing it so that I touched her clit right when I sucked on first one nipple then the other. She didn’t say anything, but every muscle in her body was straining to get closer to me. One hand held the back of my head, her fingers tugging my hair again, pressing my mouth closer to her.  I hated that I couldn’t see them completely clearly, because I had pictured them endlessly.  She wasn’t super big, but her nipples were hard and I paid them a lot of attention, loving the way her hips twitched each time I hit a particularly sensitive spot.  I moved my wet finger in a wide circle around her clit, getting closer and closer until I rubbed it directly, grinning tightly as she sucked in a shocked, deep breath at my touch.  I could taste a little bit of sweat when I licked between her breasts, and I made my way back up to her mouth when I could feel that she was getting closer and closer to coming. Her thighs trembled and she rocked  her hips into my hand. I had to pull my mouth away from Clem’s mouth so I could slip my finger back inside of her opening, moving it back and forth as I played with her clit with my other fingers. When I added a second finger, she tightened around me and bit her lip, trembling even harder under me.  I felt a gush of wetness, and swirled my finger around her clit a little harder, keeping her orgasm going and going until she pulled away, too sensitive.  

 

“You’re so perfect, Clem.” I bent down to kiss her softly on the cheek, on the forehead, and on the lips.  She still had her eyes screwed shut, and was breathing heavily, trying to be quiet as she came back down.  Her hand kind of flailed for a minute, landing on my hip, then on my chest, before sliding down over the bulge in my jeans. I groaned, low in my throat when her hand lifted me up and out, and thought I might actually start babbling when she used the precome I’d already leaked to start stroking my shaft almost lazily. She used her grip on my cock to pull me down over her, sitting up on her elbow so she was closer to me, and the idea, even the _thought_ of her gorgeous mouth anywhere near my dick had me coming right there in her hand. I cracked my eyes open at one point to see her watching with wide eyes as her hand flew over the head of my cock, then squeezing and giving me something to fuck into.

 

When Clem pushed up on her knees so that I could bend to kiss her, I couldn’t keep myself from wrapping my arms around her and hugging her, hard.  I wanted to tell her how I felt. I wanted her to tell me what _she_ felt. I wanted to take her to bed and forget about reality for awhile, because this was like a dream.

 

“Just in case you didn’t clue in- you’re forgiven. But no more, asshattery, okay? It’s exhausting.”

 

Clem meant it at a joke, but I was still so pathetically grateful that I felt tears spring to my eyes.  I got up and wet a scrap of cloth, and used it to clean the both of us up, then feeling horribly awkward as I stared down at it, threw it quickly into the fire.

 

Clem hissed a laugh, pulling up her panties under her tshirt. I could still see the wet spot from my mouth, and my spent, sensitive cock gave a hopeful twitch in my jeans.

 

I moved to help her make a nest up for us to sleep in, and Clem found a pair of sweats to pull on.  I didn’t have any interest in not being right next to her, and it made me happy that she obviously felt the same way.

 

“Hey, are ya’ll done yet?”  Daryl stomped inside, visibly shivering.  Clem and I both gave him the finger, then snorted a laugh as we saw that the other had done the same thing.  The two of us curled up again (although I think I was starting to get good at this cuddling thing) so that nothing was sticking out of the blankets, and Clem thankfully flipped the top up high enough that there was absolutely no eye contact made between either me, my dad, Carol, or Clem.  Nooo thank you.  

 

The fingers of Clem’s hand did entwine with mine though, and we listened to everyone talk through who was taking what watch with a kind of bored indifference. Every time Clem traced something on the palm of my hand with her finger, I felt like I could touch the moon.  Judith’s voice was high-pitched enough with the excitement of completing her first watch that It made me smile as I notched my chin over the top of Clem’s head, wiggling to get comfortable onto the bag of clothes that I was using for a pillow.  I heard my dad and Daryl head out, and had to grin at that, fairly certain that whatever they were up to would end up with the both of them feeling just as sleepily content.  Carol’s voice was amused as she listened to every excited detail of Judith’s first dose of responsibility and managed to get her calmed down and in bed in that way that only parents seemed to be able to do: listening without being patronizing, but still gently steering them towards bedtime.

 

Carol and Jude made themselves comfortable on the bed, and I felt myself relaxing, enjoying the heat from Clem’s body, feeling the gentle huffs of her breath against my arm slow down as I finally fell into a peaceful sleep.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *music plays* ONE MORE CHAPTER!!! I'll post next weekend! I have to say, Kudos and thanks to the crazy peeps at the **RickylWritersGroup** \- For only meeting some of them a week ago, shit got done when I was stuck at a part. <3


	8. Episode Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I’ve made up Bakersburg Island, and modeled VERY LOOSELY after Johnson’s island in Ohio. I also split this chapter up into two parts, so the # of chapters changed again. Sorry folks.

 

****

“Well aren’t _you_ cock of the walk. Looks like you figured out what that little thang’s good for after all.”

 

Michonne was eating a chocolate bar, and offered me a square. Feeling like I could conquer mountains and single-handedly save small children from impending doom, I took it, smiling at her.  It was caramel. Yum.

 

Michonne just laughed at me, swinging her legs.  We were sitting on the roof of the library, looking out at Alexandria spread out below us, like a picture. Further off we could see the gate, and even further off the dead landscape of DC. It was a spot we’d both meander to often, when our schedules permitted. The library was three floors, and packed full of so many books that it seemed surreal. Dad had said that people needed stuff to do. It had been surreal to go on ‘library runs’ instead of ‘food and survival gear’ runs, but easy enough to adapt to, after awhile.

 

“I uh. Clem didn’t leave. She’s not gonna leave.”  I popped the chocolate into my mouth and chewed happily.

 

“Well, not yet. That girl’s got a mind of her own, as I’m sure you realized. She _could_ up and leave whenever the mood strikes her, you know.”

 

I think the frown on my face must have been like a sudden rainstorm on a sunny day, because Michonne made a kind of ‘aww’ face and hugged me. “You think... she might still... go?”

 

Michonne looked out at the world spread out around us. She shook her head, her braids knocking together with a soft sound. It hit me like a punch to the gut with how much I missed her. “Naw. Well, maybe, but if she goes, I can’t imagine you not goin’ with her. The two of you’ve been a matched set for almost ten years. If she was gonna leave, she woulda done before now.”

 

Well, that wasn’t exactly comforting, but neither was Michonne. Her disturbing tendency to tell it exactly like it is was one of the things I loved most about her.  You didn’t get any bullshit with her, so if you asked a question, you for damn sure better be sure you wanted an honest answer.

 

The chocolate tasted like dust in my mouth as it suddenly occurred to me that this was probably the last time I’d get to see her.  I ducked my head to hide the sudden bite of tears to my eyes, stinging in the cold air on the roof.

 

She nudged me with her shoulder. “Okay hey. None of that mushy shit.”

 

I snorted and nudged her back. “Is this the part where you tell me that you’re always with me?”

 

“Do I _look_ like anybody’s guardian angel?”

 

We both ignored the fact that my smile was a little watery. “Yeah. Kind of. You’re here aren’t ya?”

 

Michonne leaned forward, pressing our foreheads together. I felt stupid for being so emotional, even knowing full well that this was a dream. But I couldn’t help it, and I don’t think she minded much.  

 

“You’re gonna be fine, Carl. LIttle bit bent. Little bit broken.” She pulled back to kiss my forehead and that was it, the tears I’d managed to hold back slipped down my cheeks.  Bam! Forehead kisses did it every friggin time. “But I think you figured out the point of all this.” She waved around her hand. “You’ve got someone with you who bends, and who is just as broken. But...” She trailed off, wiping my tears off my cheeks with her thumbs. I felt like I was thirteen again and she was trying to make me feel less alone.  “You’re lucky enough that your broken bits and Clem’s broken bits.... fit.” Michonne shrugged. “Together you make something better.”

 

I hugged her to me, feeling gauche at the memory of exactly how tiny she was. In my head she tended to be twelve feet tall of absolute badassery, and it had shocked the both of us when I had sprouted up enough that she was the one pretty well engulfed when we hugged.  “Thanks.” It was a stupid thing to say given everything we shared. “Thank you, Michonne.”

 

She nodded, and pulled away. We both cleared our throats, making a rather sheepish eye contact when we caught the other wiping away the occasional straggling  tear.  

 

****

 

I blinked, waking up to a cold so bitter that I went from a restless sleep to wide awake in a matter of seconds.  For a second it was jarring to not see the walls of the garage around me. It had become familiar. For all that we had burrowed there in a panic to lick our wounds and try to recover from the brutality of the attack, it had been our home for almost a month.

 

“You up?” My dad’s voice was gruff with sleep.

 

I scrubbed the sleep from my face and sat up, wincing at the sound my back made when it popped.  “Yeah,” I whispered. I carefully got out of the blankets.  Clem and I slept together, with Judith in the middle, curled into the backseat of the truck. We stayed fairly warm, for all that it was uncomfortable as hell.  At night, we’d opted to only use the fire in emergencies, well aware of the juicy target we made with a truck full of supplies.  I popped open the door of the truck and scooted out, shutting it as quietly as I could.  Clem blinked sleepily at me, but Judith just wormed her way into the warm spot I’d left, sleeping like the dead.

 

The real dead, not the reanimated kind.

 

Shit, maybe I was more tired than I thought.

 

I took over for my dad, who nodded in my direction, covering a yawn. He slept with Daryl in the bed of the truck. They’d managed to rig up a tarp, and somehow managed to fit the two of them into the tiny space not crammed full of stuff.

 

Carol offered me some tea. It was a home brew Daryl and Clem had put together, of dandelion root, lavender, some sort of yellow thing that I thought was a flower but wouldn’t swear to it, and some dried blackberries we had found. Without sugar it was bitter as fuck, but It would also probably wake up someone half-dead, so we choked it down, especially on night watch.

 

One of the things that Carol and Clem had made a point to get was an herbalist's guide.  It had amazed us all that we had all these natural remedies and recipes just lying around.  A couple of nutrition stores later and we had a store of dried plants. Some of them were long since dust of course, and some had been destroyed, but we’d found enough to get Clem started and she ran with it. None of us had been all that keen on trying a lot of them, but some of the simpler ones worked just fine.  Tea tree oil kept the lice away. Some concoction with cardamom and mint let us actually brush our teeth. It was awesome. There were others, but I didn’t know all of them. Clementine had plans of an herb garden when we settled, and couldn’t wait until winter was over so she could try to find them growing naturally, instead of the dried stuff we had.

 

Dad had just muttered about her accidentally poisoning all of us in our sleep the next time we argued. I was pretty sure Clem gave him something that made him almost shit himself in retaliation, but neither one of them were ‘fessing up.

 

I yawned and looked around the small camp. We were just outside of Pittsburgh, and according to the map, we’d be at Wellington in a little over two hours.  Bakersburg Island was also circled on the map. That... well, that would take us quite a bit longer.

 

We’d stepped up our watch to three hour increments. Not for any particular reason, but it had been a long time since anyone had tried to jump us, or attack us, and all of us were getting a little antsy, waiting for something to happen.  So we agreed that extra-caution during the home stretch would be a good idea.

 

Carol and I positioned ourselves so that we could keep everyone safe.  Carol took the cab of the truck, climbing up as quietly as she could manage so not to disturb either my dad and Daryl in the truck bed or Clem and Jude in the cab. She had one of our few rifles. She and Clem had been able to get several more clips of ammo when they went back to Alexandria, but we knew we had to be cautious. It was weird to think that we had to conserve ammo again. That had been one habit that I’d been happy to break. I did a perimeter sweep, positioning myself where Carol couldn’t see and looking out into the quiet night. There wasn’t much moonlight with the overcast sky, but there was enough snow that we’d hear anything coming. It also helped to reflect what light we had. I breathed in, feeling the frigid air in my nose and throat, my breath ghosting out in front of me.

 

It seemed weird to not have walkers attacking us at every given moment.  The snow was a pain in the ass, but it kept them in that state of hibernation that gave us just one less thing to worry about. Well, as much as you could trust it anyway. Which wasn’t much.  With my damn luck I’d get complacent and have five of the damn things on me before I could blink.

 

I shivered and hunkered down into my parka. Sunup would be in about three hours, and I didn’t have much else to do but wait, and worry. Pretty night or not, I couldn’t help it.  It was just too fucking quiet.

 

Since Clem and I had gotten together (and okay so maybe I still grinned a little bit whenever I thought of the words ‘together’), everything had been just about perfect.  Judith was the only one who didn’t make fun of the two of us, and I honestly didn’t think she noticed.  We weren’t very obvious. I mean, sometimes I’d stare at her and then realize that I had this really goofy grin on my face, or she’d kiss me good night instead of just telling me, but other than that I thought we handled our relationship pretty well. The only thing that really bothered me was that aside from that fifteen minutes Carol and dad had given us, we hadn’t been alone together. I don’t think it was on purpose. I mean, not like I’d put that past Daryl or anything, but there was just _so much to do_! I hadn’t been able to talk to her specifically, but I knew for my part, if we were ever together again, I didn’t want it to be rushed. I wanted to explore her body for hours, to try to show her exactly how I felt until we were drunk with the taste of each other.

 

Shit. Thoughts like that had no place on a watch. I shifted a bit uncomfortably and walked the other way, forcibly changing what I’d been thinking about.

 

Recuperating took time.  I’d been able to get some of my speed back, and while I didn’t really feel quite as solid as I’d been before, the extra week we’d spent in the garage before moving out had done wonders.  My dad’s arm was still wrapped, but that was more for the weather than anything else. The surgery incisions had healed nicely, according to Clem. Dad joked that it had been a damn good thing that it hadn’t been his dominant hand, but I got the feeling that he joked so that he wouldn’t start crying.  Carol’s ribs were still sore, not that she’d complain. Daryl watched her like a hawk though, and wouldn’t let her overdo anything.  As for Daryl, he refused to let anyone fuss over him. Even dad could barely get him to settle down so that Clem could check for infection. His bruising was still healing up, and I suspected that he’d fucked up his shoulder or collarbone or something from hanging from the ropes like he did, even with something to rest his foot against, because sometimes it was just obvious that he was in pain from the tightness of his mouth, or the flinch when one of us touched him.

 

I heard a twig snap and jerked my gaze up and out into the distance. The inky blackness of the night slowly started to lighten to a dim grey. Somewhere overhead an owl hooted, its wings ghosting off into the quiet night.

 

There was a crunch of sound in the snow to my left, and I turned my body so that I could see the threat.

 

I think I was more surprised than the rabbit when I actually hit it with my knife throw. That had been a move that Michonne had drilled into me since we’d left the prison so many years ago, and even with my missing eye, it was still reflex.  The rabbit fell over with a spill of blood, dark against the whiteness of the snow. I went over to pick it up, pleased.  Judith hadn’t had any actual meat in at least a week and a half, and this would be a nice breakfast with the canned and dry goods we’d scavenged. Michonne would have just smirked at me, pleased that I’d gotten the rabbit with so little fuss.

 

I tossed the carcass near where we’d put the fire once it was dawn, and grinned briefly at Carol’s nod of acknowledgement. I knew whoever made it there first would clean and cook it.

 

Still though, we’d made it through. It sounded cheesy to say that everything that had happened had made us stronger, but ... it sort of did.  guess I was speaking for myself more than anyone else. We went from our relatively cushy lifestyle to having to struggle again, and I think it made us close ranks and really appreciate what we have.  

 

I yawned and shifted, wiggling my toes in my boots.  It was easy enough to watch my half of our campsite as the sun rose. I heard a low murmur from the truck and heard Judith’s higher-pitched answer, then the sound of the truck doors opening and she and Clem getting out.  

 

Once it was fully light (maybe around seven or so in the morning although who the hell knew anymore) I did one more perimeter sweep as the rest of my family got up and started making camp.  Dad insisted on a hot breakfast of some sort whenever we had the chance, and Carol was an old hand at starting a fire.  We all knew that before Alexandria we’d camped cold on many, many occasions, but with Jude, we tried to make it a little easier for her. Which reminded me; that rabbit wasn’t going to clean itself.  We didn’t have anymore saltpeter, but Daryl showed me what he called the ‘quick ‘n’ dirty’ way to tan the skin, so that we could use it later. Carol had quite a collection of fur drying at different stages, and it wasn’t that hard to cut it, nail it flat, and scrape it. Salt we did have.  I still couldn’t find a use for the inside rabbit bits, so I tossed them in the fire.  They hissed and burned, and for a second I was reminded of the walkers that were burning between the warehouse and the fence to freedom.  I remembered Arvo, and the look on Daryl’s face when he’d been the one to have to cut off my dad’s hand.

 

I shuddered, and quickly stuck our spit through the meat, laying it over the grate of our fire.  I walked away from it, ignoring the uplifted eyebrow from Carol. Clem and Judith were just coming back from peeing and they both smiled in my direction.

 

“Do you think we’ll get there today?”  She and Jude made their way to the campfire and dished up some food.  My dad and Daryl brought Clem’s medical bag and dropped it near her, then went and got their own breakfast.

 

Clem’s wistful tone made me frown slightly. I scratched my eyebrow, thinking about it.  “Well, if the roads are okay, we should be fine. Most of this will probably turn into slush, and that will be a bit easier to drive through, as long as it doesn’t freeze on us.”

 

Clem nodded and took a bite of her oatmeal. I saw that there were some kind of dried fruit mixed in, which I thought was a nice touch.  We weren’t even close to the point of needing to worry about not having food.  Clem and Carol’s trip back into Alexandria had been worth it. Part of the reason that they’d taken so long was that they’d both driven back, Carol in an old beat-up Pinto that pretty much made it to our garage then curled up and died, and Clem with the backseat and the bed of the truck pretty well stocked. I was beginning to forget what vegetables tasted like.  But, in the natural foods store, clem had found a few packets of seeds.  None of us knew exactly if they’d been damaged or not, or if they’d grow.  She kept those seeds on her at all time, like a talisman.  Unfortunately the community garden we’d taken for granted at Alexandria had been under snow from the winter.  According to Clem it had been destroyed anyway.

 

I left it at that.  None of us really enjoyed talking about the ASZ.  Dad viewed it as a catastrophic failure on his part. He wouldn’t even talk about it.  Carol, Daryl, Clem and I didn’t particularly want to talk about it either. We all missed our friends terribly. The hurt hadn’t gone away, but it had lessened a bit, as cliche as that sounds.  

 

One thing we’d all gotten used to was friends dying.

 

I helped myself to a bowl and avoided the meat. I’d had some a few days ago. I noticed Daryl doing the same thing, and he smirked a little at me in acknowledgement. Without talking about it, he had taken on nagging my dad to eat what nutrients he could. I’d make sure my sister was doing the same.  Clem and Carol, both of whom had to know what we were doing since they both avoided the choicest bits of whatever meals we scraped up, just shook their heads at the ensuing battle. All of us Grimes were stubborn assholes, and I was pretty sure this was what passed for entertainment around our little group.

 

“We’re probably gonna leave in about twenty, everyone. That okay?”  Dad finished his food and sat down by Clem, who had already washed her hands with snow and was reaching towards his bandages.  

 

“Lookin’ good, there Grimes.”

 

My dad snorted.

 

Daryl made himself scarce as he usually did while Clem doctored up my dad, but the rest of us peeked at the surgical scar with blatant curiosity.  It was still a bit pink and new-looking, but it had healed very well. I mean, in my opinion anyway. No lines of blood poisoning, no gross bits of goo scabbing anywhere near where the stitches had been.... and dad hadn’t turned into a walker.

 

“Is it still sensitive?”  Clem pressed against the healing scar and my dad bore it stoically, nodding his head yes.

 

“A bit. Nothing too bad.”

 

“Hmm. Well, I’m not quite ready for you to go without some kind of padding on the end, cuz if you knock it against something you’re going to eke out some manly tears.”

 

Dad’s smile was kind of goofy, but Clem’s made my heart kind of turn over in my chest. Unfortunately I was just about as good as hiding my own grin, if Carol’s elbow to the side was any indication. She fluttered her eyelashes at me, and I decided that now would be a great time to take care of our fire.

 

Any wood that wasn’t burned was removed with our padded glove and stuck in the snow.  Daryl had already taken what he could from around us, and had secured the tarps over the pickup truck. We still kept emergency packs, with weapons and food at hand so that if shit went down we could still get out and regroup, but most of our stuff was in the back of the truck.

 

“Y’all ready?”  

 

“Pretty sure, yeah.  Clem is just...” I nodded in the direction of Clem and my dad, and tossed the larger of the logs into the bed of the truck. The other had burned enough that it wasn’t worth saving.  

 

From there it didn’t take all that long for everyone to pile into the truck. The last sign we’d seen had us just outside of Wooster, and I knew that Wellington wasn’t all that far in miles, although it might possibly take us a bit if the temperature dropped.

 

From there... well. We’d just see.

 

*****

 

Clem grabbed my hand so tightly that I was afraid she’d break my damn fingers.  Dad had parked the truck at the bed of a hill.   Clem still hadn’t moved, other than the garbled, “Stop!!” when we got to the clearing.  

 

“This is it. This is Wellington.” Clem’s whisper was shaky with  some emotion that I couldn’t quite name.

 

Dad shut off the car.  Clem, Carol and I were in the back, and Judith sat between my dad and Daryl in the front. The sound of the engine seemed really loud in the quiet, snow-covered clearing.

 

 

TBC!

“You ready?”  I turned so I could see her fully, and saw that she was biting her lip with nerves.  “It’s okay, Clem. We’re not gonna let you go alone.”

 

“Naw. Rick ‘n’ I’ll go with ya. ‘Spect Carl will tag along.”  Hearing Daryl speak made me realize just how quiet he’d become. He almost reminded me of the post-prison Daryl. The Daryl who had gone with Joe and his Claimers. The darker, less-talkative Daryl. The Daryl before he was with dad. If I hadn’t been so distracted with Clem’s obvious distress, I would have called him on it, and not let up until he’d named which bug had crawled up his ass.

 

“No. I think I’d be best if I stay here with Carol and Judith.” Dad lifted his handless arm. “Best they see someone strong, if they’re going to let anyone in.”

 

Daryl’s hand tightened so hard on the grip of his knife I could see veins near his raised knuckles.

 

I opened the car door. “Nah. Best if it’s just the two of us. Might need all of y’all to protect our stuff.” I tugged on Clem’s hand.  “You ready?” I repeated, ignoring my dad and Daryl. That was some shit they’d have to work out, and it was probably better if the two of us weren’t around.

 

Clem nodded and we slid out of the truck door, shutting it behind us. We each grabbed a backpack, and checked our surroundings out of habit, Clem taking the right and me the left, compensating for my eye. I nodded towards the camera in the tree to my left, whistling the ‘on guard’ warning.

 

“That’s new.”

 

“Well, it’s been a few years since you were here.” I took a deep breath. “There’s no way they’re not watching with six of us. Might as well go up.”  That being said, I put my gun in its holster and raised my hands. Clem was _not_ happy at putting her guns away, but she followed my lead.  I didn’t miss the fact that let me walk first, nor that she grabbed my non-dominant hand with her non-dominant hand, so that both of us could go for our weapons if needed.

 

The walk up the hill was just long enough that my stomach felt fluttery with nerves.  I heard Clem blow out a short, deep breath through her lips  when Wellington came into view.

 

“Throw away your guns!”

 

Clem did so, frowning. “Can we approach?”

 

“Slowly. Any movement by your group in the truck and you’ll be sorry.”  The man’s voice was low, tense with anger and adrenaline. I knew exactly what he was feeling. In the last three or four months before Alexandria fell, we’d had to turn people away. It sucked. It sucked so much that ‘sucked’ wasn’t even enough of a word for it. People would come up to the gates, so full of hope and relief at the possibility of safety, only to have to turn them away so that those living there would have enough to keep going.  

 

The decision to do so had kept my dad and the rest of the council, Maggie, Eugene, Carol, Steve, Hannah and Neil,  up at night.  None of them _wanted_ to make that call, but they’d had to do it.

 

“We’re just looking for information!”  I called out, looking up at the shadowy voice on the ledge.  I raised my hands, just to be safe, trusting that Clem would get my back.  The both of us stopped about fifteen feet from the gate’s entrance.  

 

“What information?”  The voice was cautious, but the AK-47 pointed at us didn’t waver.

 

“Is Edith here? I met her once when I was a little girl.”

 

We heard some whispering and had just a second to make eye contact out of the corner of our eyes.  

 

“No. There’s no Edith here.”  The voice had thawed slightly, but we could both tell that he was lying.  

 

“Oh. Well,  when I came through here I was with an older man named Kenny. He had a baby we called Alvin or AJ. Can you just tell me if they’re here?  You don’t have to let me in or anything.”

 

We heard more whispering. Feeling like an asshole, I slowly lowered my hands.

 

“Please? I just want to--” Clem’s voice broke. I wasn’t sure if it was feigned or not. “I just need to know if he’s okay.”

 

The voice cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry, but there’s no Kenny here either. We’re over capacity, too so we need you guys to leave. Peacefully.”

 

Clem bowed her head, and I couldn’t help but reach out to touch her elbow. She jerked away, turned around and stalked back down the hill.  Still not sure what was for show and what was for real, I followed her at a slower pace.  Her head was still bowed, and I saw her wipe tears off her face.  By the time we got to the bottom of the hill she had cooled off enough to turn back towards me.  Her face worked and all I could think to do was open my arms.

 

“Damnit, Carl.” Her voice wobbled but she stepped into my arms, ignoring the fact that Daryl, Carol, my dad, and Jude all practically had their faces pressed against the truck glass. I just enjoyed that she let me hold her close, and ignored the kissy faces Carol and Judith made behind Clem’s back.

 

Fucking assholes, my family, every single one of them.

 

Clem didn’t cry, but she did sag against me for just a moment, trusting me to hold her up.  She pulled away and turned to pull up the truck’s handle.

 

“Hey! Hey wait just a sec.”

 

I had my gun in my hand, turned and had it pointed almost before the lady had finished her first word. I couldn’t see with my periferal all shot to shit, but I could feel that Clem had done the same behind me.  

 

A tall, slim woman in earmuffs stood there with both of her hands up.

 

“I remember you. You gave us bags of food.”

 

The woman smiled. She was in her early forties, although age was pretty hard to guess nowadays, and her smile changed her face into something beautiful.  I assumed this was Edit by the way that Clem wasn’t going for her weapon. “Yes. Look, I have some information for you, but we’ll have to go out of the ways of the cameras before I tell you.”  She gestured towards the camera with her chin, and I frowned, turning to face Clem. I raised my eyebrow and she lifted her left shoulder.

 

“They got sound?”

 

“Just in the vicinity. If we go over there, we should be okay.” Edith stretched out her hand and pointed to a ways near some of the snow drifts, about thirty feet away from the truck.  Neither of us were interested in her being in our truck, no matter how nice she seemed, so we let her lead the way until we were far enough away from the camera that she could talk freely.

 

I noticed she kept her back to the tree though, and for some reason that made me like her a little better.

 

“Okay, give me a hug so we have a reason to be talking.”

 

Clem did, her face carefully blank.

 

“Kenny is holed up on a little island called Bakersburg. He and I meet up every two months to trade information. Wellington’s been full up for so long that I’m afraid he’s never gonna be able to get in, but I got the impression the last few times that he’s not too fussed about it.  He talks about AJ all the time, and it’s pretty clear that he loves that boy like crazy. His setup is hard to get to, but he told me he left directions in a red mailbox in the actual village. On Kings street, if I ever needed someplace to go.”

 

She said all of this in a veritable tumble of word-vomit, speaking so quickly and at such a volume that we both leaned in a little to hear.

 

“Are you... are you okay here?”  Clem smiled for the benefit of anyone watching and hugged her again.

 

“Oh. Yeah, I’m fine. They just don’t know about Kenny’s setup, or they’d try to...” Edith trailed off, but we knew what “they” would try to do. A community that size needed resources to maintain its residents. If Kenny had some sort of setup, as modest as it was, there were people here who would want it.  

 

Kind of like a life-or-death recycling program.

 

“You best get back. Thank you.”

 

I nodded and Edith made her way back up the hill. I opened my mouth and Clem shook her head once. We went back to the truck and climbed in. Dad had started it while we were walking back, and even Jude seemed to pick up on the tension, not speaking until we were a mile away from the compound.

 

“Arvo knew this was a possibility, but he didn’t know if Kenny would have moved already, so he wanted us to be sure to check it out.” Goddamnit, I hate owing that bastard anything else.  Clem pulled out the map, dad pulled over to look at it again.

 

“She said there were directions to the place in a red mailbox on Kings street. In the village.” Clem pointed, and my dad caught my gaze in the rearview mirror.

 

“You sure we want to take the chance? Could be dangerous.”

 

“The frozen fuckheads ain’t gonna be a problem, and we have enough firepower that we c’n take anyone who tries to go for us.” Daryl shrugged.

 

“I think if she came out there to give you information, you should check it out.” Carol’s voice was subdued. She was stitching at something in her lap, and otherwise ignoring everyone as we drove towards the tiny village of Wellington.

 

I found myself talking before my brain caught up. “I agree. We’ve come this far. Seems like it’s be a shame to miss something. Arvo could have been working off old information.” I didn’t particularly think that he was- at least, not that old, but I was curious about what Kenny had left for this woman.

 

“Right then.” Dad put the car back in gear and headed to the small town.  It wasn’t much of a town. Oh it probably had been at one point, but the Wellington residents in the compound had obviously ransacked every single thing they could use, stripping it of building materials, steel, hell, even hinges and nails. There were still some shells of houses standing, though, peeping up through the snow like skeletons in a graveyard.  The red mailbox on Kings street had fallen over. In fact, if it hadn’t been red, it would have been easy to overlook through the snow.

 

There was a note scrawled on paper stuffed into a ziptop bag.  Clem’s hand shook as she grabbed it, and I tried not to stare at her as I watched our surroundings so that she could safely read it out loud.  I wanted to know what she was thinking, and she was too damn stubborn to tell me.

 

_'If that skinny Ruskie guy or a younger woman come looking for me, direct them here. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I live in that cesspool of yours, and if it ever gets to be too much my offer still stands._

_I’m not putting the town here, ‘cuz I know you’ve been told. You can find it on a map easy enough. You’ll need a boat to get to me. ‘Course, everyone and their brother has a boat ‘round these parts, so it shouldn’t be too much of a big deal.'_

 

Clem’s breath was shaky as she looked up from the letter and folded it absentmindedly, setting it back into the broken red mailbox.

 

“Now what?”

 

I pushed myself off the side of the truck, smiling a little.

 

“Well? I guess we go to Bakersburg Island.”

 

Clem’s smile was both relieved and a little wobbly, like she couldn’t quite trust that I would agree.

 

“This is like... I. I don’t even know what this is like. Surreal as hell. Like a game. Or a movie. We could get there and he could be ... gone.”  Clem shrugged, turning and opening the door to get back into the truck.

 

“Well, it gives us someplace to go. Best to be sure before we hole up for the rest of the winter.”

 

I slid into the backseat behind Clem, not saying anything.  This went against everything we’d ever done, but well... no.  Dad had found me and mom, way back in the day. Daryl had gone back for Merle... several times. We’d gone back for Glenn, for Maggie, for Abraham, for Michonne. Dad had gone for Daryl when he’d been stuck in the jewelry store.

 

That’s what you did for people you loved.

 

Clem loved Kenny, and given that he’d been her friend for so long, as mixed up as I felt about everything else, I knew that there was no way that she wouldn’t want to go back, to be certain that he was gone, if that’s what had happened.  Dad knew that too. Clem would want to know either way.

 

And here we were.

 

“So if he left her that note, then he woulda left her a way to get t’ him, dontcha think?”

 

“Yeah, probably.”

 

Clem shrugged. “Kenny loved boats. When it first happened, he wanted us to pick one up in Savannah, and go back to Florida. Live on the water, where he thought it was safer.” She frowned. “It didn’t work out.”

 

“Then. It didn’t work out _then_. My guess is that Kenny’s doin’ just fine on this island of his. Smart, really.” Dad sounded like he admired him.  He shifted and drove around a snarl of snow-covered traffic in the middle of the road, the truck bumping along.

 

“Problem’s gonna be with finding his boat with this place picked clean t’shit.”

 

True. We’d seen lots of signs for marinas the closer we’d gotten to the Great Lakes, but it had been awhile since anyone had needed to  worry about a boat. I didn’t think it was like finding a car or a truck. There, you took a chance with a rusted out chassis or dead battery, but you could piece things well enough together to Frankenstein yourself a working mode of transportation. A boat though? Shit. The only boat I’d ever been on was my dad’s old bassmaster when I was a kid, when he and Shane had taken me fishing.  Course those trips had been more about sneaking unhealthy, greasy breakfast food under my mom’s nose than fishing, but she never called us on their bullshit.

 

“You go left, we’ll go right. Carl, you can stay with Judith and the stuff.”

 

It didn’t miss my attention that Carol went with Clem, and  Dad and Daryl went off the other direction.  I think we could all tell that Daryl was pretty hot about something, and it was probably best if they had a little time to themselves before he exploded. I remember when Daryl had been quite a hothead, and while we’d all changed, that hadn’t really gone away. It was just hidden a lot better. Carol liked to tease her “pookie” about getting mellow in his old age.

 

Judith and I climbed up on the cab of the truck, sitting on the roof.  

 

Wellington was visible in the distance, and I realized just how it massive it had to be.  Alexandria had been big, but that was crazy huge.  The fact that they’d stipped the local area for anything that they could even potentially use had been very, very smart, and spoke of someone very intelligent calling the shots.  From back here, I could see several guard towers.  They had long since cleared the land for miles around, giving themselves the tactical advantage in all directions.

 

“What are you starin’ at, Carl?”

 

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking, really. Whatcha reading?”

 

Judith showed me the cover of the battered paperback. I raised my eyebrow at the cover.  All I could see was the silhouette of a boy on a grey cover.  I read that book like two years ago, and there’s been stuff in there that had given _me_ nightmares. Jesus. I knew she was smart, but holy crap.

 

“Uh. You sure you’re okay reading that? It’s not... uh. Scary?”

 

Judith gave me a withering look perfected by all eight-year old sisters everywhere since the dawn of big brothers.

 

“I _like_ scary books. At least here I can shut the covers if it gets too bad. Not like the real world. Here you just gotta deal with it.”

 

It was an astonishingly sober thought.

 

For awhile, the only sound in the area was the wind blowing snow across the ground. From a distance, I could hear faint shouting from the direction my dad and Daryl had gone. It wasn’t ‘holy shit _danger_!’ shouting but more ‘Enough of the goddamn bullshit!’ shouting. I was glad that I couldn’t hear the particulars, to be honest. Hopefully they’d work their shit out with some privacy. If it got too quiet, I'd go check on them but for now it was fine. Almost on cue, I heard one of the shouts cut off with something suspiciously like a moan and blushed.

 

 _Ugh._ Old people sex.

 

The sound of Clem and Carol coming back through the snow saved me from doing the equivalent of plugging my ears and going lalala just to distract myself.

 

"We found one!" Clem's voice rang with excitement. Both her and Carol's faces looked like they'd just received the best news ever, despite the dirt from the road and signs of exhaustion. "Just like before, there was a garage and a boat almost ready on a trailer. It's like he was waiting for us!"

 

I returned Clem's smile, willing enough to share and her excitement. "Uh... We probably want to give my dad and Daryl another five minutes-ten, tops."

 

Clem and Carol both smiled at my obvious embarrassment.

 

Carol made her way into the cab of the truck and got something out of the back seat. Sitting inside would fog up the windows which could be dangerous, so she made a point of sitting on the bed of the truck and going back to stitching the small thing in her hands, looking for all the world like she had nothing but time. I guess in a way she did. Clem climbed up to sit on the roof of the cab by Judith and myself and her small, cold hand felt fragile in my own as we waited for dad and Daryl to come back.

 

I absolutely ignored how relaxed my dad and Daryl looked when they came back. Carol told them where to go and within minutes we put the truck in front of the small shed by a larger marina. The marina had been eviscerated, either accidentally or on purpose,  but most of it appeared to have burned. Some of the fire damage reached to the shed and I think that's why no one had investigated it too carefully.

 

Daryl actually smiled at seeing the boat, and fairly grinned after he checked that the boat was free of anything that would keep us from using it.

 

"You think you'll have any problems with the the ice on the lake?" Carol bit her lip, mildly concerned.

 

"I doubt it; not this early. 'Nother couple of weeks and we'd been in trouble.” Daryl answered.  “That motor ain't gonna when us any races, but it should get us there with no problems. Looks like we got oars if we need 'em."

 

"Daddy, I found four life jackets."

 

"Yeah well, we're lucky we found that many. We're gonna have to split up anyway. All of us on one boat like that is dangerous." Dad frowned behind his beard.

 

"I think splitting up is even more dangerous." Daryl didn’t often disagree with my dad, so instead of making him angry, it made him think. “‘Sides, we’re burning daylight here. According to the map, it’s only a few miles. We can make that in an hour, easy. Got enough gas for three times that.”

 

Dad cocked his head as he looked around at us, frowning. “Hnnm.” That was his ‘I’ll think about it’ grunt. He walked over to our supplies on the truck and looked again at the shed.  It was cold enough that even the noise of us breaking into the small shelter hadn’t brought any walkers. If it was warmer, some of them would have eventually wandered in. But, with the hibernation or whatever was going on, it kept them from investigating any loud noise. We sure as shit hadn’t seen any since we’d gotten to Wellington.  

 

Which, I had to admit, was pretty fucking impressive. Wellington had to be some seriously well-oiled machine for it to have survived so long. The fact that they’d pretty much cleared the area of any major walker activity was amazing.

 

Daryl finished tuning up the small motor, and fiddled with something so the sound was muffled. Once they managed to figure out exactly where they were going it was easy enough for us to unload the supplies in the truck into the shed, and fix the door so it was boarded up from where we broke into it.  Dad hitched the trailer to the truck, without saying anything. Clem shot me a grin and I grinned back.  That was classic “dad” for him saying without saying that he agreed with Daryl.

 

Fact was, an hour would put us there around three or so. The island wasn’t all that big, so finding Kenny would be a cakewalk. Which reminded me. “You think he’ll hear that motor? Even with it being muffled, that’s gonna be loud as hell on the lake. It’ll bring everything in hearing distance.”

 

“Naw. We can cut the juice a few yards out. Row in slicker ‘n shit through a goose.”

  
Judith looked at Daryl, mildly confused for a second, having never before seen a goose to understand the phrase.

 

Dad tossed a few of the emergency backpacks onto the boat. I peeped up over the edge, and understood what he’d been talking about when he’d raised the issue of space to Daryl.  The boat was clearly not meant for anything but fishing. There was one seat in the stern that was set up higher than the other seats, and the bow had a small bench built into it for storage- where we found a flare gun and a small med kit.  There were only four seats on the entire boat, but plenty of space for Clem and Jude on the bottom of the boat. It would be tight, but as none of us had much extra weight on us, I didn’t see a problem.

 

Clem took a deep, shaky breath.

 

“You good?” I asked, concerned.

 

Clem nodded and smiled. “Just...” She blew out the breath. “Just can’t believe that I’ll know. Know for sure in... in a few _hours._ ”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I'm setting up the end, so it went on, and on, and on.... gah. RL sort of exploded in my face for awhile, but I should be back to posting by Wednesday. Thanks for sticking with me!


	9. Episode Nine- The Final Episode

The spray of the water as the boat cut through the lake was icy against my face. Carol had thought to bring a poncho for Judith, and she huddled miserably on the floor of the boat as we headed north, water pelting against the plastic like hard little bullets. Fortunately, the  lake was calm as we tooled across its massive surface.

“Hey.”

I looked at Carol. She held out something small towards me. I could see that it was brown, and very small, and I raised my eyebrow at her.

“I made it for you.”

Oh. That was what she’d been working on.  I took the small object and my throat closed up as I realized what I was holding.

“I thought that black might bring back bad memories.”

“Is this... from Michonne’s jacket?” I recognized the color of the leather.

The eyepatch was made from brown leather on the outside, the side that everyone would see when I wore it.  Carol was right. A black eyepatch would have made me feel like that fuckhead, the Governor. I don’t even know how Carol had managed to work on this without me realizing what, exactly  it was.

At Michonne’s name, my dad jerked his head towards us, as though prodded by something.  After that one night, we’d all stopped talking about all the family we’d lost. It hurt too much. It wasn’t right maybe, but I didn’t think any of us were quite ready to casually mourn them, so we tended to avoid mentioning anyone’s name.

“Yeah.” Carol’s voice was tight with suppressed emotion, and I was afraid for a second I would start crying.  “I used her jacket, and the rawhide strips she used to modify her vests and jacket so you could tie it on easily. Turn it over.”

I did. “Oh,” I whispered.

The tears were cold on my face in the wind stirred up from the boat. Carol had taken a different color thread for each person. Michonne’s name was stitched on the side that would go against my face. Sofia’s, Maggie’s,  and Glenn’s. Hershel and Beth and Abraham, Eugene, Rosita and Tyreese. Tara. Sasha and Bob. She’d even included Merle and Shane. At the very bottom, was my mom’s name. Lori.  I ran my thumb over each letter of her name, then looked up at Carol through my tears. I was probably acting like some kind of pathetic wuss, but I didn’t think anyone here would call me on it.

“This is amazing. Thank you.”  Not enough words, but I couldn’t manage anything else.  Carol’s blue eyes were just as tear-filled and she smiled that sad half-smile of hers, the one that spoke of everything she’d lost. She reached out to touch my shoulder, and I grabbed her hand, squeezing it once before typing the eyepatch onto my face. Carol had stitched around the outside of the leather with a smaller piece of leather in another shade of brown, so it lay flat where it needed to, but curved over my eye socket, hugging itself to my face.

No one else on the boat had seen the names, and I don’t think they understood quite why I was upset. We’d gotten the art of tactful ignoring of someone’s crying to a fine art.  I brushed the tears off my face with my sleeve, and looked out over the water.  I would thank Carol properly when I could talk without my voice croaking through tears.  It was amazing, and I’d never be able to thank her for this.

A water bird cried out over the lake, and Daryl looked up at it, his fingers twitching towards his crossbow.  Instead, he cut the motor’s engine, and I heard Clem take a slow, deep breath. I was glad that no one was going to ask me about what Carol had given me. They probably just assumed that I was crying because I was in mourning over my eye, or the fact that I needed an eye patch. When I showed them they’d be absolutely gutted, so it was best that I just keep it mine and Carol’s secret.  

For now.

“Okay be on the lookout. Go in quiet. We won’t know how cleared the shore is.” My dad’s voice was tight with adrenaline.

Both Daryl and I grabbed an oar.  It took us a second and quite a bit of cursing to get the trick of it, but soon enough we managed to use them properly, cutting through the clear lake quickly.  

“Clem, you and I should keep a lookout. It makes me nervous that they don’t need to breathe.”

Well, great. Hadn’t really thought about that, but now that Carol had mentioned it, my paranoia ratcheted up another three notches. That was never bad given the world we lived in, but it was hell on my reaction time. I was already blind on one side, so the idea of someone watching for walkers coming out of the water was a comforting one.

The shoreline got closer and closer. Once the sand butted up against the bottom of the boat, both Dad and I jumped out, splashing loudly and using the scope on the rifle to check in all directions.  Daryl and I had gone for a bare patch of shore.  Trees were thick, their dead branches tangling together in a way that would make it almost impossible to walk through undetected.  Dad whistled and jerked his head to the left, and I caught what he saw: a glint of light on a piece of barbed wire. It was strung haphazardly through the branches.  

Clearly someone’s defense system.

I whistled the all clear and everyone else got out of the boat. Daryl pulled it up out of the water, but left the boat key in it.  That was always risky. If we needed a quick getaway, the boat would be ready to go for us. But if some other survivors happened upon it, it would probably not be there when we did get back.

“Looks pretty built up. Ideas on which direction to go?”

Clem sighed, taking off her hat and smoothing her hair into a slightly less crazy-looking ponytail. The wind from the boat had teased her black curls into something reminiscent of a tornado’s aftermath. She jammed her hat back on her head and shrugged.  “One direction’s as good as another, I guess. We can’t go through here.”

“Good point.”

We decided on left, and started moving out. We kept our group tight, with Dad and Daryl taking point. I watched my dad’s interaction with Daryl, and smiled a bit to myself to see how they’d “talked” it out. Their entire body language was different. While they had been tense and stilted towards one another, now they were back into the easy camaraderie that they’d perfected years and years ago. Part of me really wondered what the problem had been, but I wasn’t going to ask. That was their business.

We walked for about half a mile before Dad whistled and pointed to a small deer trail. There were obvious fences on each side of the trail, built from a mix of pointed sticks and metal spikes. The spikes were joined together with  wire rope, encased in plastic. It reminded me of the setup Morgan had when he was alone in my hometown. It was the second sign of the amount of defenses this place had and I couldn’t stifle the small feeling of hope that grew. Surely if they had this, then they wouldn’t be overrun, right? They’d be okay? We wouldn’t have come all this way for nothing?

We only went about twenty feet when there was a shout of alarm.

“Stop right there!”

I caught a glimpse of strong walls, but even through the naked trees, we couldn’t see who was yelling at us, but instinct had all of us freezing in place.

“I don’t know why you’re here, but you need to leave. Now.” It was usually impossible to tell age from just voice alone, but the scratchy way it broke on ‘now’ told me that he couldn’t be all that old. Fourteen, Fifteen, tops.

The flash of panic on Clem’s face made me frown.

“No- wait! Please! I’m here to see Kenny, or... or AJ!”

The silence was very loud and twice as oppressive.

“Step to the front, please.”

Clem handed me her rifle and pushed back her hat.  I could hear her take a deep breath, and my heart went out to her.

“”These are my friends. Kenny’s note told us how to get here, and _please_. Is he here?”  Her voice cracked on the _please_.

“Holster your weapons and come inside.”

The deer trail pitched upwards slightly at a small angle. About one hundred feet later, we clearly saw the walls we had only glimpsed earlier.  They reminded me of the walls built in Alexandria.  The trail widened to a much more substantial trail.  Whoever was here had cleared a small line of sight maybe ten feet wide around the wall, and from what I could tell from a quick glance it spread out in both directions. There was a clang, and the sound of chains clinking, and the gate opened.

The man that came out was older than I expected. He was tall, and thin like we all were, but he sported a full beard that was shot through pretty heavily with white.

“I don’t fucking believe it.” His voice wobbled with shock.

The gates closed with a loud sound that made all of us jump. All of us except Clem. I think she was staring at the man so hard I doubt she even heard it.

Clem sucked in a breath and was running, dropping her weapon on the ground and sprinting forward.  The man, who I recognized as Kenny from Arvo’s  picture, opened up his arms and Clem wrapped hers around him in a hug so strong that he picked up her slight form off the ground, swinging her a little in his eagerness.

I swallowed hard, grinning so hard my face hurt.

“I thought... I thought...” Kenny’s voice gave out on him and he just buried his face in Clem’s shoulder, hugging her more tightly.  I could hear her murmuring to him, and see him nod in response, then I had to look away, to give them what privacy I could.

In the gate were two people. One was an older man dressed in black. He was very pale; almost cadaverous looking, with cheekbones that seemed emaciated and dark grey circles under his eyes visible from even this far away. The other was a young boy around Judith’s age.  His brown eyes widened as he stared at Kenny. This had to be AJ, or Alvin Jr., but he was older than in the picture.  The scar was a pale pink in contrast to the rich, reddish-brown of his skin, and I knew that whatever had caused it had come close to ending his life. It didn’t mar his eyesight, or his mouth, stretching from his temple to his cheekbone, but it was startling to see in such a young face. It made me reach out for Jude’s hand.

Clem sniffed again and Kenny just shook his head, his voice still too low to understand. I turned to my dad, and he smiled tightly at me, his teeth a quick flash of white against his beard.

Carol touched my hip and I could see her eyes were wet as she stared at Kenny and Clem’s reunion.

Eventually though, they broke apart, both wiping their faces unashamedly. Kenny had to clear his throat a few times before he managed to step forward towards us, holding out his hand.  He shook with my dad, and Daryl, and Carol, then Judith, then me, grinning the whole time behind his thick beard.

“Jesus, I can’t even believe this. Daniel, AJ, come on, let’s let them inside. Nathan’s got watch for another few hours.”

Stepping inside was like stepping into a book, or a scene from a movie. The house was huge, sprawling and reinforced on the bottom floor. A large porch wrapped around the front. Icicles hung from the eaves, and everything looked very peaceful. To the very left of where we were standing was a graveyard. The crosses had been carved and painted. Names had been etched on the horizontal part, although we were too far away to read them. A few bushes lined the fence, and I imagined that when they flowered, they were probably roses or those purple ones that made me sneeze. Something that added to the peacefulness of this place.  It was obvious that these people buried had been well-loved. The area was covered in snow, but the actual graves had been swept clean.  There were seven larger crosses and two smaller crosses.  To the right were two outbuildings, and what looked like a gazebo.  There were two solid-looking tree trunks next to the gazebo, and again I could easily imagine how it would appear in the summer, reading in the shade of the large oak trees.

The house showed a lot of care and upkeep, much like the graves.  The style of the house wasn’t like the ones in Alexandria, that had fairly reeked of the modern indulgence that had ruled supreme before the world went to shit. Instead it seemed almost old-fashioned.

“Come on into the house. Do you guys have supplies? Nathan already spied your boat. We have a dock that’s less exposed, and he was going to drive it around for you. Holy shit, girl I can’t believe you’re here. Every time I look at you I feel like my damn heart is gonna explode.”

We filed inside, and I knew that I wasn’t the only one rubber-necking. This was so far out of the realm of that tiny little garage we’d squatted in that it was almost unbelievable.

“You’ll stay, right? At least the night?” Kenny asked this of dad, who nodded.

“If you’ll have us.”

“We don’t usually get much company. Had a few raiders a few months back, and it made us skittish of strangers, but when Nathan radioed that a young woman was askin’ about me.... shit.” Kenny’s voice broke off again in what sounded suspiciously like a stifled sob.

The house fairly bristled with weapons.  I saw an AK stashed in a corner, and there were knives and two backpacks stashed under some of the hallway furniture. I saw a staircase directly to the front, and what looked like a great room to my left.  Kenny walked right, into a large dining room.  The table was solid and massive.  There were easily fifteen chairs around its surface, and it made me think of the crosses and frown a little.  We’d both lost so much. So much family, gone.

The older man, Daniel, opened a door and came back with several glasses and a pitcher of water.  We all took seats around the dining-room table.  I noticed that Daryl and Carol did not relax their guard, although both accepted a glass of water. My dad seemed completely at home, and Jude kept darting glances at AJ out of the corner of her eye, but she stayed mute, sticking to my dad’s side like glue. Clem sat with Kenny on one side and me on the other.

Kenny whipped out a large, red handkerchief and  wiped at his face. “Jesus, I don’t know where to start.” His laugh was strained.

“How’d you find this place?” I picked a question that would hopefully put him at ease, maybe relax him with talking about something comfortable.  

“Oh, I didn’t.  Two men in the family,  Abraham and Jacob found me ‘n’ AJ about starved to death.  We were surrounded, and I was pretty out of it. Fever. I’m amazed they even took us in, to be honest.”

That was true. A fever was _not_ generally something that people welcomed into their homes. Not in this day and age.

“Jacob gave us some food, and saved our asses from the swarm. Camped for a few days to make sure I wouldn’t turn- I wasn’t bit or nothin’, just sick- then accepted us into their home.”

“Welcome to my home.” Daniel's voice was almost sepulchral. I’d never heard a voice so deep before.  He sat at the head of the table, watching all of us with calm, sharp eyes that missed nothing. “It was our fortune that we found Kenny and Alvin. God was with us on that day.”

I blinked, stymied. God was not something people generally referred to anymore. Oh they’d swear, or cry out to Him in a desperate prayer before being attacked, but I don’t know many people that really believed in God anymore. I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I realized that _Hershel_ of all people, could be killed so horribly, right in front of Maggie, and Bethy, and all of us... _that_ was when I’d stopped believing. If there was a god, he was obviously busy with other things. That or so disgusted with the human race that he was content to watch the last remnants obliterate ourselves.

I took a sip of my water, discomforted.

“Please excuse me.” Daniel left the room, walking with a slow measured pace.

It was quiet until he left.  

“That old man is something else. Lost his whole fuckin’ family not six months ago and refuses to give up. Still fights for every damn day he has left. Tough old bastard. I’d thought that these folk weren’t violent, but they’re not pushovers either. They try not to use weapons when possible... but it just ain’t very possible anymore.”

Kenny was babbling nervously, and stopped, scratching a little helplessly at his head before continuing. “Well, when we got here, you coulda knocked me over with a feather. Who woulda thought of an Amish community on a damn island? Guess it was a bit touristy though. Daniel spoke of his daughters running a shop. There are some high-end houses and a small village on the other end of the island. When we got here, ‘bout eighteen months or so  ago now?”

AJ nodded.

“Well, we helped with the fence. Had another woman here, an outsider who used to work construction.  Local. Her cousin had one of the other houses on the other end. Helped us fortify the gates with concrete, and I used to be a welder back in the day, so the walls went up around the main house and our farm areas. We were attacked before the walls were finished. Humans, though. The old man and Nathan- were the only ones left. Damn kid’s lost a lot.” Kenny trailed off.  “ We all have, I guess.” He shook his head.  “Enough about me!  You gonna introduce me to your friends?”

Clem started, jerking in place like it hadn’t even occurred to her to make simple introductions. I knew then that she hadn’t let herself believe that she would find Kenny, let alone that he had a place here that we could really make work, if he’d allow us to stay.

“Oh damn. I’m sorry. This is Carl, and Rick. Daryl, Carol, and that is Judith. Guys, this is Kenny and AJ.”

“Kenny’s told me all about you. How you saved my life. How you took care of me when I was a baby, like a sister would.”  Alvin’s voice was a shy whisper, and Clem’s smile was more than a little watery as she looked at him.

“Yeah. Your mom was a pretty tough lady. Your dad too. Smart, like I bet you are.”

Alvin shrugged, obviously embarrassed. “Kenny’s taught me a lot.”

“So how many acres are here?” Daryl looked thoughtful. “That’s actually... pretty damn smart.”

Kenny nodded. “They held out for awhile. Think the pacifist belief was the first to go though. Jacob would say that God wouldn’t want him to just hand over his family to the Devil. They already had a self-sustaining farm... Joseph really did save our lives when he allowed us to come live here. ‘Specially since I’m not exactly a god-fearing man.” He was quiet, twisting his hat in his hands. “Look, Clem, I just.... what happened?”

There was a crackle of the radio, and Nathan’s voice came over.  “I finished hiding the boat. Don’t see any activity from the noise of the motor. Do you want to spell me, or should I come in and close up for the night?”

Kenny pushed the button and I could tell what he was going to say before he said it. “Think we can just shut up tight for the evening.”

I saw Daryl and dad looking at each other and it didn’t take much to imagine what they were thinking.

Daniel came back, and dad spoke up.  “We’re no stranger to farm work. Is there anything we can do?  We have supplies stashed on the mainland. Do you need anything? Weapons? Medicine?”

The older man smiled. “God’s providence allowed Kenny to find his young friend. He brought you to us, and allowed us all to be together. I shall extend our hospitality tonight, and his bounty will sustain us all this evening.”

“Yeah, Nathan’s on his way back. We can secure it for tonight.”

Daniel nodded. “As you say.”

Carol stood up and smiled. “Please let me help you with dinner. It’s the least I can do.”

He smiled and nodded once. “If that is your wish I won’t say no.” He smiled, looking at Judith. “And you, young lady. Would you like to help your mother?”

Daryl quickly hid his snort of laughter with a cough.  Carol’s grin grew slightly wider. Judith took it all in stride. She might not call Carol “mom,” but the two loved each other enough for it to be true.

Kenny saw Daniel go towards the fire, and jumped up to save him from overtaxing himself. “You sit, sir. I got this.”

“I am ill, you see. No way of telling, but each day is God’s gift. Kenny is kind enough to spare me work when he is able, and I am grateful for  each day I have with my grandson.”  I couldn’t help the way my face tightened in worry. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but living with someone who could easily die in his sleep was no longer just sad. Now it was a matter of everyone’s safety.

It must have been pretty obvious, because the older man raised a hand as though to stall conversation. “At my own request, I am locked in my bedroom at night. If ever Kenneth, Alvin and Nathan are working, rather than put them at risk, they lock the dining room door, and enter back into the house through the back of the kitchen.” His smile turned a little wry. “I have no desire to give any of you cause for worry. I am quite aware that if my grandson is to live a long life, he will need people here. Good people. Are there any additional precautions you wish for me to take?”

Dad was shaking his head before Daniel finished. “No. Not at all, sir. Just ... thank you for your hospitality. You are very generous.”  

Carol and Judith left, and Kenny finished lighting the fire.  Daniel pulled his long body up to his feet and followed the women into the kitchen, probably to make sure they knew what they were doing. The idea of a farm made me wonder if we’d get real meat. Alvin went to the windows and opened the shutters, for ight. I noticed that they were slatted, and provided light without sacrificing security, like a plain glass window would.  

I was beyond impressed. It was just... this _felt_ right.This was important. Us being here was some sort of miracle, and as conflicted as I felt about whether something had granted us that miracle or we had earned it through our good deeds, I still wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“I was taken. Kidnapped.” Clem’s soft voice caught everyone’s attention. “I never would have left you two voluntarily. I went to scout for formula, and maybe some food, and  one of the Grady men just.... took me.”

Daryl’s hand tightened around the handle of his crossbow.  Beth might have been killed eight years ago, but it had never left him. I knew he still felt guilty for not getting her out of there.

“Grady men?” Kenny kneeled and shut the fire grate. He dusted off his hands and made his way back to the loveseat he’d been sitting on with Alvin.

Clem nodded.  “I think some of them were good people. They went around Atlanta and the surrounding area, rescuing people they thought they could help. He saw me alone, and drugged me, and the next thing I knew I was in Atlanta with him. I didn’t even know his name, but he died when one of the walkers bit him. He turned really fast, and Rick and Daryl saved me.”

Kenny swallowed hard. “I thought you’d been... I thought...”

“No. I’d never have left you guys on purpose. When Arvo found us, and told me that you two were alive, I couldn’t believe it!”

Kenny rolled his eyes. “That Ruskie _bastard_. Took me awhile to trust him. Still didn’t all the way. There was something off about him, but he kept tellin’ these crazy ass stories that he’d seen you drivin’ in a golf cart of all things. Thought he’d hallucinated it, tell the truth. Had some crazy idea that he could make up for what he done by reuniting us.”

“He did. Over and above, he did.  Arvo went down to save Rick, and I can never repay that. Plus, here I am. With you guys.” Clem’s smile was beautiful, and my heart turned over in my chest at the sight.

There was the sound of a door opening, and a tall, skinny teenager entered. He had a divot in his chin, and his cheeks were reddish from being outside in the cold.  He held a small sling instead of a weapon, and that surprised me for some reason.

“Hullo. I’m Nathan.”

We all introduced ourselves. Nathan ducked his head and looked a little intimidated by my weaponry. We heard Judith laugh in the kitchen, and Daniel’s low voice in response.

“Sling?” Daryl’s voice was rough, but impressed.

“It’s a... compromise. I’m not comfortable with weapons, although I can shoot if I need to.” He looked mulish for a second. “My sling never misses though.”

“That’s... really smart, actually. Never run outta ammo.”

“My grandfather insisted I learn to defend myself.” He looked impossibly sad for a moment, and I remembered that most Amish were pacifists. It suddenly explained why so many of his family had held out for so long... and why they were dead.  The sling seemed like a good compromise, and I wondered if we’d be here long enough to learn how to use it.

“Here. Please let me show you where you’ll be sleeping.” Nathan smiled, and stood up.

“That would be fantastic. Thank you.” I stood up and left my dad, Daryl, Clem, Kenny, and AJ to talk in the living room.  

Before we went too far towards the staircase, I heard several bells tinkling. It sent Nathan and Kenny into immediate action, and the rest of us followed their lead, grabbing weapons and following the two of them.

“That’s the south bell! We’ve got Walkers. You guys stay with Daniel!” Kenny meant Carol and Judith, but I noticed that AJ stayed back as well.  Carol would keep the kids safe if it meant giving her own life. I saw her nod as we thundered out the back way, through a hallway and what looked like a smaller living room, down the stairs out to the porch and to the back.

“Musta been the motor when Nathan hid your boat. Woulda been loud as hell. Surprised we didn’t hear it from the house.”

The six of us thundered past several trees, and quite a bit of land that I knew would be used for farming, if it weren’t covered with snow. The snarling, groaning sound of several walkers in a limited space interrupted the peaceful quiet of the winter evening.

“Haven’t had time to clear the whole island. We get small packs of ‘em every once in awhile. Haven’t though since the weather was this frozen. Think they hibernate or somethin’.”  Kenny shook his head. “Okay, the back gate swings open with two doors. They’re heavy as fuck, so I say we let those dickheads push ‘em open as they come for us.”

“I can cover ya, Kenny. We can control it better.” Nathan no longer sounded shy. He quickly climbed up the tree closest to the south gate, and I immediately realized that it gave him a vantage point to shoot from. I sincerely hoped that he was as good with that sling as he said he was, otherwise one of us was gonna have a helluva headache come morning.

“Agreed. I’m gonna hang back, just to be safe. I’ve got the silenced rifle, but I haven’t test driven this yet.” Dad raised his left arm.  “Don’t wanna get in anyone’s way in case I’m not as fast as I used to be.” Dad, long used to taking over, looked back over his shoulder at Nathan.  “Alright everyone.  Go quick and go strong.”  

He nodded at Kenny, who nodded back.  Kenny and Clem ran to either side of the gate.  It was the kind that had levers about two feet apart. Throwing the levers brought up the spikes that secured the gate to the frozen ground. Then there was a horizontal bar that had to be twisted into the unlock position.  It was ingenious, and it was very obvious that nothing was coming through that gate unless someone from the inside let them in.

I checked that my silencer was screwed on, and long habit had me checking ammo.  It was important that we use the quieter versions of our weapons. If they hadn’t had a chance to clear the rest of the island yet (something I was gonna ask about ‘cuz that _definitely_ seemed like a priority) then any loud, echoing gunshots would bring any other walkers in the vicinity towards us. I mean- we would in a pinch, but it was a little bit easier to be cautious now, in the hope it would save us later exhaustion that could keep someone from getting killed.

“Here we go!”

Kenny threw open the last lever and the gates swung open, slowly, the smell of rotten corpses rolling over us like an unpleasant wave.  

It had been so long since we’d had a swarm like this, that I have to admit that the adrenaline hit me harder than I expected it to. The winter months had kept things so quiet that my brain had forgotten. Thank god my body hadn’t.

There were about twenty of them, shambling and staggering in their blind search for food. Some were bloated from the water, and I shuddered as I started shooting, imagining legions of them walking under the surface of Lake Erie, just waiting for the growl of a boat motor to lead them ashore, like some twisted Pied Piper of Hamelin.  

Nathan’s sling struck true.  Walker after walker collapsed in true death, with a neat hole in the center of its forehead.  Clem got cornered once, and before I could fight my way over I heard Kenny reacted with a roar of rage, swinging his machete with renewed vigour and fighting his way to her.  Daryl and I enjoyed the hand to hand-- him swinging his knife to the right, and me to the left, taking them out one by one until nothing was left.

All of us breathed a little heavily, and shared a guilty grin with one another, enjoying the rush of being alive.

“Shit. You guys are good in a fight. I knew this one was, but I have to admit y’all were a nice surprise.”

Daryl shrugged. “You gotta be. ‘Sides, it was us that brought ‘em to y’all.”  Kenny shrugged, and Dad helped him close up the gates, while Daryl, Clem and I started stacking the bodies near the gate, rounding up the few body parts that had fallen or broken off.

“We usually burn them, but it’s almost dark.  A fire like that would be seen from the mainland.” Nathan’s quiet voice made all of us nod, even though we had no say in the matter.  We cleaned our weapons on the sleeves and in the snow, and made our way back to the house.  Somehow, I was the only one that got hit with anything to gross.  Figures. I’d turned my head in time to save the eyepatch, but my shirt and hoodie was covered in gore.

“Any trouble?” Daniel’s voice was as startling as usual, like he was speaking from under a very large well.

“No, Grandfather. Several of the evil ones, but everyone fought very bravely.”

“Yeah, that sling of yours is somethin’ else.”  Daryl clapped him on the back.  “You should be proud of him. He saved my a-- er. My rear end a coupla times.”  

We all hid smiles at Daryl’s hastily changed word. Daryl Dixon threw down cuss words like rain falling from a fat cloud. The fact that he was trying not to verbally offend our host was... well. It was pretty damn adorable to tell the truth, and I wasn’t too shy to say it. Well, think it.  If I actually said it, Daryl’d kick my ass.  Well. ‘Rear end.’ I smiled to myself.

“I thank God for him daily. He is as brave and as kind-hearted as his father before him.”

Nathan ducked his head, clearing his throat. “I can show you where to clean up now,” he said to me obviously embarrassed from his Grandfather’s praise.

I snorted a laugh, looking down at myself a little ruefully. “Yeah. Guess I’d better, especially now.”

Daniel showed the rest of my family where they could clean up, and I followed Nathan up the stairs.

Nathan grabbed a hurricane lamp and lit it. “There were two families and we lived not too far from each other when I was small, but my dad and my Uncle decided that it would be wiser to live in one home that we could protect.  This is my grandfather’s house.”  We walked up some stairs and onto the second floor landing.  This is my grandfather’s room. Here is mine. I ask that you leave this room empty. He pointed, and I could see what looked to be a girl’s room. The colors were lighter, and some dolls were perched on a window seat. There was a bathroom, and one more bedroom. “The women and the girl can stay here, if that is okay. It has the larger bed.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. We appreciate this. It’s... rough being on the outside.”

“Yes.” Nathan nodded solemnly. “Kenny spoke often of the young girl, Clementine. I am so pleased for him that she is here, and while it is my grandfather’s decision, I do hope that you will live with us for some time. You all fight so very well. It is... terrifying to only have Kenny to protect my Grandfather.”

“How remote is this island?” I knew from the way my dad was acting that he hoped that we would be invited to stay.

“There are no direct roads here. There used to be a ferry, and the English that lived on the other side kept to themselves and respected our privacy. I was young, but I remember helping my aunt in the store and my father pleased about the tourist dollars.” He sighed and gestured to the second set of stairs.

“There are two more bedrooms up here, if you do not think that the two men will mind sharing.”

I hid a grin. No, I didn’t think the two men would mind sharing at all.

“Your room is small, but the bed is quite comfortable.” Nathan spoke like he was trying to sell me on the place, and I didn’t quite know how to tell him that it had been so long since I’d slept in a real bed that I’d be happy with a pallet on the floor. “There is an attic if you would prefer that.”

“No. Not, thank you. This is amazing. I set my backpack and my gun on the bureau. Nathan seemed pleased, and showed me where I could wash up for dinner.

“I should go see if Grandfather needs any help. Please come down when you are ready.”

The bathroom was amazing. There was no shower, but there was a huge claw-footed tub. To my astonishment, there was even hot water! Hot. Water. I’m pretty sure my dick got hard. I knew they didn’t use electricity, but maybe gas was okay? Hell, I didn’t care if there was a wood burning stove powered by two drunk hamsters... there was _hot_ water.  I immediately pulled off my walker-guts stained hoodie and my shirt, and set it to the side.  I carefully untied my eyepatch and put it where no water or steam would reach it. I didn’t want to use up anyone’s water ration, so I used just the tiniest bit of hot water so that the result was tepid, but still oceans above the ice bath I’d taken at the garage.  I helped myself to the soap and water in the deep sink, washing my face and chest, my neck and face and arms. Oh god, my armpits. I didn’t even care that I smelled like lavender; being clean was way too amazing.   My hair was crazy long, and the scarring from my eye had healed well enough that it still looked pink and new. Clem had done a great job with her stitches. Considering I was shot in the face, you could barely tell. My eyelid had a scoop of skin missing, but it too had healed.  A quick peek under my eyelid confirmed that no, my eye hadn’t magically grown back, but everything looked much better. Not swollen, and no marks on my skin. It just looked like a patch of skin on my arm or something.  I tied the eyebatch back on. Carol had done an amazing job, for doing it without measuring my face. It fit just right, curving along my cheekbones. The fact that she’d used part of Michonne’s jacket made me, as cheesy as it sounded, feel like she was there with me.  I sighed, and stroked two fingers over the butter-smooth leather of the eye patch, then turned my head, caught by a few items on the shelf over the toilet.

There was bakingsoda toothpaste which tasted disgusting... but not as disgusting as my mouth.  Euurgh. I think I brushed my teeth for twenty minutes.

“Carl?” I heard the tap of fingernails on the door.

Clem blinked at me when I opened the door half naked, and I saw her check out my face and chest, before jerking her gaze back up to my eye.  She blushed a little.

“Sorry, Nathan said to get cleaned up, and I guess I got a little carried away. Here, come m'ere.”  I pulled her inside and waved my hand at the sink, like a magician. “Soap! Lots of soap!”

“Yeah.” She trailed one finger over my collarbone, and I froze, my eye widening rather comically in the mirror. “I think I’ll come visit you later. If that’s okay? Daniel said that I could have a bath if I wanted.”

My brain exploded a little.  Clem in a bathtub? Hell fucking yes.

“I don’t want to offend Daniel or Nathan, so we’d have to be quiet.”

I made a sound reminiscent of all my internal organs collapsing at once. Her fingernail traced down over my nipple and I gasped, shivering.  I bent down to capture her mouth in a kiss, and she melted against me with a little sigh, like she’d been wanting me as much as I wanted her- which I wasn’t entirely sure was possible.  Clem pulled away and bit her lip.  

“You should go on down. Dinner is almost ready.”

I licked my lips, like I could keep the taste of hers on my own. “Yeah. Don’t be too long, okay?”  I bent down for another quick kiss and then made myself go away. It was quite a bit more difficult than I thought it would be. She just looked so sweet there, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to wait until tonight.

I shut the door behind me and jumped when I heard a familiar clearing of a throat.

“You might want a shirt before you go downstairs.”  Daryl sounded like he was gonna laugh right in my face.  I nodded and walked into the smaller bedroom I’d been given, digging in my pack for a shirt that wasn’t too gross.

“Wish I could give you a rubber or somthin’. Or her a pill. That’s one determined girl.”

Well that certainly made the semi I’d been sporting go away. I hadn’t really even thought about birth control. I pulled the shirt over my head, trying to hide my sudden freak-out.  Most of those things had long since expired, but that was something I’d definitely have to discuss with Clem before we uh... did anything. I shrugged. We’d figure it out.

“Hey man, sorry. Wasn’t trying to put a damper on anything. You can bet she has thought about it though.  And don’t worry- after dinner, we’ll be sure to cover for the two of ya.  I dunno if we’re gonna be stayin’ here or not, but you two should.... have the chance to be together while we still have it good.”

For Daryl, that was a speech.  He put his crossbow and my dad’s gun in what was ‘their’ room.

We made our way downstairs, and into the dining room.  Once there, I stopped short again. I blinked, not entirely sure I wasn’t dreaming.  My dad and Carol were both sitting down, both showing signs of a recent washing-up.  Jude had her hair down, and brushed and was talking to AJ.  Nathan was watching them with a small smile.  At the other end of the table, Kenny and Daniel were talking quietly.

The table had several candles burning in holders on its surface.  The winter evening was already dark, and while I’d been upstairs, they’d closed up the shutters.  On the table though.... I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. Or my nose.

There were ham steaks, juices still bubbling onto the plate. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had ham.  I saw bread, and butter, potatoes and some sort of vegetable, steaming in a bowl near Carol. My stomach gurgled so loudly that everyone stopped talking and looked at me.

I didn’t even care that they were laughing at me. I had a strange urge to lick the butter straight off of the plate.

Fortunately for my sanity, and my stomach, Clem and Daryl joined us not too much later. We waited politely while Daniel said a prayer, and all of the sudden I missed Hershel so much it hurt. I’d only had him in my life for a little while, but he’d been so kind, and made such an impression, I thought of him as my own grandpa. I thought of his name under my eyepatch and smiled a little to myself.

“Wow,” Clem whispered, staring at everything. It was a huge meal. Even in Alexandria, we only feasted like this on special occasions.

“We currently keep cows, pigs, and chickens. Not as many as... as before. The land, too, has been a blessing for us.”

Nathan nodded. “We have a small herb garden, and grow corn, wheat, and green beans. In the spring and summer, I mean. Although my mother started a small indoor garden.”

Clem grinned. “That’s awesome! I have some seeds. I’ll be happy to share with you.”

Dad whistled, staring at my sister as Judith tried ham for the first time. “I can’t thank you enough. This place is beautiful.” Judith’s eyes crossed, and she started eating quickly, letting what manners we’d managed to instill in her go flying out the window as the amazing flavor of the meat burst onto her taste buds.

Daniel took a small bite of ham, chewed, and swallowed. “Kenneth tells me that there is much to do here, and that we need people to do the work.”

Kenny nodded, pouring something into my glass. It was apple cider. I think I teared up a little. Had the trees Nathan climbed been fruit trees? Seriously?

“We started stripping the other part of the island, but stopped after... er. Stopped when we needed to farm. There’s a lot to do here, and Daniel is right. We need people to do it.”  Kenny passed the butter to my dad, who stared down at it a little stupidly before he put a miniscule amount on his plate- like he was afraid if he allowed himself he’d take too much.

Daniel nodded and folded his hands over his plate. “I am aware that this is perhaps quite sudden, but...” he trailed off, smiling a little. “It is not wise to waste time. especially not in these days.” His gaze wandered over to Nathan, and his features softened. “I do not claim to know the mind of God. I do not know why he called you English here, nor do I understand why he took my family Home.”

I stopped shoveling potatoes into my face, listening. I imagine that he’d lived most of his life here on Bakersburg, with most of his family within shouting distance. He must be terribly lonely, and worried to take in so many outsiders at once. Good in a fight or not, this had to go against everything he believed in.

Daniel looked to Nathan, and spoke in a language I didn’t understand. It wasn’t English. Nathan nodded rapidly, speaking back very quickly.

“I do know that you need somewhere to stay, and that Providence has reunited Kenneth and Clementine, not once, but twice. I would like to officially ask you to live here, to share our house and hearth.” He paused, then spoke quickly. “As English, of course. I wouldn’t ask you to adopt our ways.”

Dad inhaled sharply. “I had hoped you would say that. Would ask us to stay.” He turned to Nathan. “This is your home too. Would you be okay with us living here?”

Nathan looked quickly at his grandpa, then back to my dad. He nodded, shyly. “You said that you have experience farming?”

“Yes. One of our friends showed me.” Dad smiled. “It’s been awhile, though.”

I remembered our time at the prison. It was hard to think of all the lazy good times, spent with my dad and Hershel in the fields. Everything was overshadowed by what had happened when we’d gotten there, and what had forced us to leave. I touched my eyepatch again. Carol caught me at it and smiled into her beans.

“Then you’ll stay?”

Dad looked around the table at all of us before he held out his hand towards Daniel. “It would be our honor, sir.” His voice was thick with emotion. Dad blinked away tears when Daryl reached under the table, as though he was going to hold Dad’s hand. Daryl only reached out for a second, as though he needed the reassurance of physical contact before turning back to his food.

Daniel’s shoulders slumped with relief. “This is very good news. Very good. I will show you the outbuildings and basement tomorrow. The larder is very well-stocked, even after all this time.”

“You don’t need to sell us on this place. No offense meant, sir, but this is a beautiful place you have. Rick is right. We’ll be honored to share it with you, to help protect both it and your grandson once you’re gone.” Carol smiled a little at AJ. “ We’ll need to make plans to go get our things soon. We have lots of books of Judith’s.”

“Oh. Uh. I. I only read a little.”

“We were kind of busy.” Kenny sounded both sheepish and defensive.

Carol brightened. “Well I would be happy to show you. I’m sure that you’ll pick it back up in no time.”

AJ’s shy smile lit up the room.

I kept my own grin to myself. Carol had lost a lot. In some ways, I think she’d lost more than any of us had. Her and Daryl’s relationship was pretty much the most important in her life, and her relationship with me and my sister, and with my dad echoed that. She’d been there when we thought dad had died in that mudslide so long ago, and had helped Daryl keep going.  She’d always been there for me, when I had a nightmare, or when I needed a hug or a kick in the ass.  Her and Ty had saved Judith’s life after the prison, and while she’d tried to separate herself from us for awhile, she hadn’t held out long.  

We’d all learned never, _ever_ to ask what had happened to Lizzie and Mika.

Seeing her with AJ made me feel .... better. She seemed at home with him, comfortable in a way that only mothers could be.  

I caught Daryl’s gaze for a second, and I could tell we were thinking something similar.  

Judith yawned, the full belly and being warm after so many days of shivering in the cold obviously doing her in. Hell, after the adrenaline crash, I didn’t think that I was too far behind her.  Clem caught my eye and winked and I immediately sat up straighter in my chair.

Kenny was staring down at his plate, eating mechanically, but I could tell that he, too was pretty emotional at Daniel’s decision to allow us to stay here.  I couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like for him, with a child and a teenager, and an old man with the specter of death floating over him. He had to be overwhelmed.

“I, uh. I was pleasantly surprised that there was hot water upstairs. I didn’t use too much through, just in case.”

Daniel turned to me, smiling kindly. “Many of the plain folk don’t use any type of your modern conveniences, but with the climate we adapted to the use of solar power, rather than using only gas heaters.”

I blinked. That was... hell. I barely remembered how solar power worked, other than a few science classes in middle school. If it meant that I could take a hot bath though, I was pretty much ready to weep with joy.

Kenny reached out for Clem’s hand and squeezed it. “How long have you and your young man been together?”

Feeling all eyes on me caused me to freeze in place, my cheeks flaming.  I remembered the horrible way I’d treated her, what I’d put us both through, how I’d taken her for granted while wanting her so desperately and pushing her away just as desperately.  Yet even with all of that, I hadn’t even told her how much I loved her.  I swallowed, hard.

“Oh Clem and Carl have loved each other my whole life. It’s so gross.” Judith rolled her eyes, but shot me a smirk when no one was looking.

That sly little shit.

“That’s good. I’m... I’m glad you found a young man in all of this.”  Kenny gave me a look that made me sit up straight in my chair. The words were nice, but the look said that if I hurt her, I’d find my balls removed slowly and painfully from my body.  It was the same look I’d seen dads give to daughter’s boyfriends all around Alexandria. Hell my dad had given me the same look, and I was _his_ kid!

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.” I smiled a little at Clem, whose entire face softened in return. It was true. Clementine had saved all of us in too many ways to count.   I stared back at her, everything I felt for her naked on my face.

“See what I mean? Gr--oss.”

Daryl snorted at Judith’s words, and everyone did a really shitty job of hiding grins at the way my face flamed in embarrassment.  

“If everyone’s done, we can clean up. Carol, Judith, Daniel, you guys will let us, right? Since you cooked?”

Daniel pushed away from the table, nodding. I noticed that we’d all waited for him to be finished before leaving the table; a sign of respect for the man that had allowed us sanctuary in his home.

“Indeed. Alvin, please show Judith some of the games. Nathan?”

“Yes, sir.” Alvin pushed back his chair and he and Jude disappeared towards the smaller living room I’d seen before. Nathan trailed behind with the disgruntled look of a teenager demoted from the adult’s table to the kid’s table.

“I’m gonna make another check before I head up to bed. Would you... ah. care to join me?”

I know my eyebrows weren’t the only ones to fly up at Kenny’s rather awkward invitation to Carol.

“Ah! Join me in a walk. Not in..” He itched his ear, cheeks flaming. “Not in uh. oh damnit.”

Her smile back was sweet and innocent and I don’t think any of us trusted it for a second.

“And I believe I’ll retire for the evening. Good evening, all.”  Daniel made his way to the staircase.

Clem and I stared at each other again, this time with no one around to see us. I saw the light-brown shade of her eyes darken slightly, and she bit her lip a little nervously. “I think I’ll go take my bath now.”

Oh dear sweet Jesus Christing God. I watched her walk away, gaping like an idiot after her.

“Damn, son. Not sure if I envy you or am afraid for you.” Dad’s whisper caused Daryl to roll his eyes and smack my dad on the shoulder.

“Keep it up, Rick and you’re not gonna get any tonight either.”

Oh, _ew_.

Daryl and my dad made their way to the kitchen, and I brought the dishes to them. It took me a couple of trips.  I had to grin at how domestic they looked, Daryl washing and my dad drying, managing pretty well with only one hand.  The sink was larger than I was used to, the kind I’d see in Georgia farmhouses with one huge area instead of two.  There was a small fridge that was unplugged and I remembered what Daniel had said about using solar power in place of electricity.  They must use that during the summer months, or when the winter wasn’t as cold as it had been. The bread I put on top of a counter, and the bowl of butter I covered and left on a shelf on a hutch near the kitchen door.  We hadn’t left any other leftovers, all of us eating our ham steaks, potatoes, and green beans, almost to the point of licking the plate.

“You go on. We got this. ‘Sides, if you say goodnight to everyone and make it upstairs, it will give your girl just enough time to pretend to be going to sleep with Judith and Carol before hightailing it up to your room.”

I sighed like the angsty teenager I felt like I still was half the time. “You guys try not to sprain anything this time.”  My dad had mysteriously “thrown out his back” a few times in ways that left my dad sore and quiet with a limp and Daryl smug as hell. I stretched out my arms so I could hug my dad and Daryl at the same time.  “I’m really glad we came here. She’s so happy.”

“Yeah. Not sure what we did to deserve this, but I’ll take it.”  My dad kissed me on my forehead, which he hadn’t done in years. Daryl just clasped me on the shoulder, but he nodded at my dad’s words.

“Goodnight, you two.”

“Night, Carl.”

“NIght, kid.”

Kenny and Carol were probably still outside, so I made my way to the game room, where a cutthroat game of Uno seemed to be going on. I knew my sister could hold her own with both Alvin and Nathan, and had to grin a little. If either one of them were gonna treat her like some helpless kid, they’d have one hell of a rude surprise when she was done kicking their asses.

I made my way past everyone’s bedrooms, and up the second set of stairs, feeling all at once a  bit nervous.  Since I knew hot water wasn’t a problem, I grabbed a pair of shorts and went back into the bathroom, hearing the water running one floor below and deciding that Clem deserved a hell of a lot more than a quick washup. I ducked into the shower, moaning a little at the force of the hot water pressure, and washed my hair and the rest of my body, helping myself to what looked like homemade shampoo and soap.  I didn’t linger, and had forgotten a towel.  I pulled my shorts onto my wet body with a shiver.  It was a little cool in the hallway when I made my way to my bedroom. My dad and Daryl’s door was still open, and it occurred to me that the fact that Daryl had left his and my dad’s main weapons there said a lot about how he felt about this place.

In my room I opened the flue to the fireplace, and quickly built and lit a small fire. The crackle of the wood sounded familiar, and it made me think of that wood stove in the garage, how we’d all been so cold and hurt and heartsick as we huddled around its warmth.

God, we’d come so far since then.

I pushed aside the white curtains to the one window in the bedroom, looking down and out into the night. There wasn’t much of a moon, but I couldn’t see any lights out there. Just the inky blackness of land, then the smooth expanse of the lake. It had started to snow again.  I shivered and let the curtains fall shut, glad we weren’t outside for another night.

My fire wasn’t very big, but it did take the chill out of the room.  It put out just enough light that I didn’t trip over anything as I turned back the sheets and quilts on the bed.  

I heard a small sound and turned, only to see Clem dart inside my room and shut the door behind her softly with a  _click_.  Her hair was wet, and down to her shoulders. I knew she’d hack it off again soon, but was glad that she was letting me see her so vulnerable.  She was wearing a long t-shirt and a pair of fluffy socks.

I looked at her feet and raised my eyebrow.

“What? I hate cold feet.” She smiled and took them off quickly, still with her back against the door.

I walked forward, trying to take it all in- that she was here, that we were safe, that we would be safe _again_ , after the clusterfuck of Alexandria. Clem tilted her head back to look at me and I bent down to kiss her.

The kiss was chaste for a heartbeat, two, before I felt her tongue flick out to tangle with my own. I kept telling myself to keep it slow, not to rush, or to freak her out, but it was hard to listen as I felt Clem arch up on her tiptoes to rub against me. She was so warm.  So perfect.

Still, what Daryl had said before clanged around loudly in my head. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her to me, but moved my head back out of the kiss.  “Um. I don’t want to presume too much, but uh. I don’t think either of us are ready to be a parent.”

Instead of being mad, Clem actually grinned at that.  “I’ve been keeping track of days pretty damn carefully, and we’re good for another two weeks. Just to be extra safe, I have a cap.” She frowned, seeing the fact that I obviously had no idea what the hell she was talking about in my face. “I’ll show you later. Nothing is a hundred-percent safe, but.... we’re as safe as we can be.” She stretched back up on tippy-toe so that she could whisper into my ear. “Because, Carl? I really want you inside of me.” She bit my earlobe, and I’m pretty sure my knees turned to jelly. I caught myself with one hand against the door and clutched her to me, my hand sliding down to cup her ass.

“If you’re sure then.” My voice was a little strained, but Clem just laughed and tugged me towards the bed. There was just enough light to see by, which I was doubly glad for once I saw her stip off her t-shirt in one quick jerk of her hands.  Her body in the firelight was beautiful, and I reached out to touch her, lightly moving my hand to cup her cheek, then down over her neck and collarbone, then down to just ghost over her left breast, the nipple pebbling hard against my palm.  “Jesus, Clem,” I whispered. I could see that she was breathing more heavily now as I slid the same hand under the curve of her breast, its softness brushing against my knuckles.  I spread my palm out over her ribs, and she caught her breath, goosebumps breaking out over her skin. I moved my hand over the bump of her tummy, and she spread her legs so I could touch her.  I had a visceral memory of how slick she felt against my fingers, how she’d shivered in my arms and my breath left my lungs in a gust of air.

Clem squeaked and we both laughed.

“I uh. I don’t know what I want to do first.”  

“Well, I’ve not done anything, so I vote yes on everything.” She pulled away from me and slid into bed, stretching out onto the mattress with a little, contented sigh.

I said a quick prayer to the gods of premature ejaculation that I wouldn’t shoot off and embarrass myself before I could physically show her how much I loved her. My dick was hard enough I feared for the amount of blood actually getting to my brain.

It was easy enough to kneel next where Clem lay stretched out on the bed, capturing her hands and kissing her fingers with a laugh and a shake of my head. “Give me a minute, then you can explore ‘til your heart’s content.”

“That would take quite awhile.” She stretched her neck out for a kiss and I obliged, losing myself for awhile in her mouth, in the sounds she made, in how perfect she was.

Eventually though, I managed to break away from her mouth. Knowing that no one had ever touched her like this before made me have to stifle some of the caveman possessiveness I was feeling.  I kissed down the column of her neck, flicking my tongue at her right nipple before sucking lightly at it.

She cried out in a breathless gasp, her whole body arching into the pull of my mouth. She held my head  to her with both her her hands, and I kissed back and forth until she was trembling under me.  I moved my mouth down between the center of her breasts, licking at the rim of her belly button and listening to her squeak again on a giggle when it tickled.

Everything in her body said yes, but I wanted to make sure before we went any further. “Clem?”

“Hmm? Oh. Oh yes, please. Please, Carl.” She spread her legs in invitation and I grit my teeth at the picture she made stretched out on the bed. I brushed my body against the apex of hers and we both groaned at how wet she was. Or maybe at how wet I was. Jesus, was any of this even real?

“Now?” Her hands skated down my sides, over to my lower back, pressing me against her.

“Ah-a-almost.”  It killed me to move away from her, but I’d been dreaming about tasting her for years. The fact that she was letting me, even encouraging me was spurring me on, like I was working against a clock ticking down to something.  I moved down onto my bed, and used my thumbs to part her folds. I moved to her and blew lightly, darting my tongue out to taste the wetness there.

“Carl?”

“You ever had someone kiss you here?”

She shook her head, and I stroked my hands up the inside of her thighs. They were trembling slightly and I had to push back the possessiveness again. I bent my head and licked at her, moving so I could hold her open with my fingers.

Clem made a shocked, guttural sound. I wished my tongue was longer as I flicked it inside of her, sucking at the wetness I found there. I ignored her clit, although I could see that it had thickened. It looked red and swollen. She was so wet that her juices were all over my face, and I wanted that, wanted to make her come with my lips and tongue and fingers. I slid one inside of her, sliding it around until the walls clamped around me. I gave her another finger, moving the both of them inside of her, gently at first until she started rocking her hips, looking for more.  

Now, I paid attention to her clit. She had grabbed my hair, and I think she’d knocked the eyepatch off my face, but I wasn’t about to complain. She pushed my face into her and I just sucked in air when I could, lapping at and flicking my tongue against her. Clem whimpered softly with mangled little attempts at my name.  Her scent was so rich it was all I could taste as I sucked on the small bundle of nerves, curling my fingers inside of her.  Clem cried out, coming hard against my face, her muscles locking up and then relaxing boneless into the bed.

I kept at it for a few more seconds, gentling my touch until she let go of my hair so that I could rest my chin against her knee and look up at her.

Her eyes were hazy for a few seconds before she blinked and _yanked_ at my hair, pulling me up and twisting around so that our positions were reversed.  She wouldn’t let me hold her, instead kissing me hard, wrapping her arms and legs around me.  My cock bumped up against her ass and it was my turn to groan, squeezing my eyes shut a little desperately when I felt her slick skin against me.

“Uh. Normally I’d be ready to let you explore ‘til your heart’s content...” She bit at my chin lightly with her teeth and I sucked in a shocked breath.  “But. Uh. Oh jesus.” She moved to kiss my sternum, wrapping her hand around me. “If... ah. If you t-t-t--ah, _Christ!_ ” Her mouth closed over the head of my cock a little uncertainly, and I froze. I don’t know what the fuck I was babbling but I shut myself up immediately once I realized that that sound was coming from me. Clem bobbed her head once, then twice before I had to stop her, terrified I’d come right then.

“Need a second... if you. If you want...” I broke off with a groan when she swung one leg over my hips, moving her grip to hold my cock steady as she lowered herself slowly down onto me.

Feeling her heat, and the slickness of her as her walls as they closed around my dick was going to fucking kill me. She gasped and I watched her face, ready to call a halt if it looked like it was hurting her. My hands tightened on her hips. I felt like _I_ was the one that needed the steadying hand, like my own world had tilted on its axis.

“Clem?”

She tightened her inner muscles and looked down at me, smile trembling on her lips.

“I love you.”

I watched as her eyes shut, as the smile stretched and grew.

“And not just because I’m inside you, although...” I moved my hips little, and she gasped. ...”although this _is_ pretty awesome too.”

She laughed outright at that, and moved up, slowly enough that I could feel my control clawing to free itself. My hands tightened on Clem’s hips, and I immediately let go, afraid I’d bruise her.

“No. Don’t let go.” She closed her hands over mine, moving them back to where I’d had them, and started moving, sliding up and down slowly, then slowly increasing her speed as she grew more confident, more sure of herself.

“Ahhh....” I cried out, watching her move above me, enraptured by how fucking beautiful she was, with how much I loved her, with how perfect this was.

She leaned forward and kissed me and I lost any semblance of control. I remember thrusting up when she thrusting down, trying to get the fingers on one hand free so I could bring her off with me, but Clem tightened her fingers in mine and I was lost, arching up into her heat one more time before I felt my own orgasm slam through me like a freight train.

My heart pounded in my chest, echoing in my ears as I tried to remember how to breathe. Clem had collapsed on top of me, and a little belatedly I turned to kiss her, pulling out and sliding three fingers directly inside. She yipped in shock and froze as I moved my thumb over her still-swollen clit, kissing her when she wanted me to, just sharing breath when she didn’t as I made her come again. I wanted to do more but she moved away with a grimace, and I figured that I’d have to work on any sex god powers I wanted to cultivate, especially if I planned on lasting longer than three minutes once I was inside her. I waited until she was sleepy until I got up, and searched around for my shorts.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

At her words I popped up from the side of the bed like I’d been electrocuted, staring at her in shock for a second. “I’m...”

“Is this cuz, I didn’t say that I love you back? If you don’t _know_ how much I love you Carl Grimes, then you’re a fucking moron. Now get back into this bed. I’ve been cuddling with you every day for a month, and I..” her voice softened. “I can’t sleep without you next to me.”

I was pretty sure the grin on my face had enough voltage to power a small town.  I cleared my throat. “Uh, no. I’m just getting a cloth to clean up a little. You’ll be more comfortable.”

“Oh.” Clem flopped back down on the bed. “That’s fine then.” An imperious arm pointed vaguely towards the door. “Continue.”

Jesus Christ, I adored her. Absolutely revered the very air she breathed, and I was just about at the point where I was ready to shout it from the rooftops.

Well you know. Figuratively.

Instead, I nodded and made my way to the bathroom. While I was there I went ahead and cleaned myself up, peed, and brushed my teeth, grinning at my sweaty sex hair and readjusting the eye patch that had, indeed, swung around over to behind my ear. I washed my hands then wet a small tea towel and wrung it out.  The night was quiet as I closed the bathroom door behind me. Habit had any of us rarely leaving any door open. Not anymore.

“--Carl?”

I froze guiltily at the sound of my dad’s voice, all at once vividly realizing exactly what I looked like.  Instead of standing in the small hallway, it was immediately clear that his voice had come to me from behind his door.  I opened my mouth to answer, then felt like a real dumbass when I heard Daryl respond to the question he’d obviously been asked. They didn’t even know I was here.

“Think it will. Be okay I mean. But I wouldn’t expect to see those two before noon tomorrow.”

I felt a tiny bit guilty for eavesdropping, until I heard my dad’s snort of laughter and figured, fuck that. They were talking about me, right?

“Yeah well, took him awhile to get his head outta his ass.” Daryl’s low drawl made me smile. “She’ll set him straight, though.”

“Listen, I wanted to.... I mean I just needed to...”

I rolled my eyes. It was amazing to me that those two had ever managed to get together. I could imagine Michonne’s exasperated ‘use your words, Rick’ ringing in my head and miraculously, he managed to.

“I don’t ever want you to feel guilty about savin’ my life. I’d lose my hand again if it meant that I get to spend another day with you. With my family. And, I know it doesn’t look... I mean... It’s gotta be weird to---”

“Shut the fuck up,” Daryl hissed, fiercely. “You stupid...”

I heard a rustle, and a bang, and a shocked gasp and had no trouble imagining Daryl kissing the stupid off of my dad. Now I had an idea of what they had had to “work out” in the snow earlier today.  Jesus Christ, my dad is an idiot.

“You think that there’s anyway I _wouldn’t_ save you? That I wouldn’t want you, any way I can fuckin’ keep you? I  _love_ you, man. You’re mine, remember? As much as I’m yours?” Daryl’s voice hitched. He wasn’t exactly an emotional guy, but damn. When he felt something, he felt something hard. His words had the cadence of something repeated before.  It was sweet, but eurgh. This was my dad. And _Daryl_.

I heard my dad’s choked, “Yeah.” and pushed away from the door, shaking my head. _Now_ I felt a little guilty about listening at the door. I shook out the towel and made my way on silent feet across the hallway and made my way back to my bedroom.

Clem was curled on her side, almost completely out of it. I closed the door and stirred the last remnants of the fire before making my way to her. She mumbled something really unkind at the temperature of the wet cloth, but allowed me to clean her up. I tossed the towel, and shimmied out of my shorts before pulling her into my arms, cuddling as requested. I felt her smile into my shoulder and I kissed the riot of her curls.

“I’ll get better with practice,” I whispered, trying not to smile like a complete idiot.

“Lots and lots of practice?” Clem sounded damn near chipper.

I snorted a laugh and we both listened to the other one breathe, the rhythm of our breaths syncing into sleepy, sated harmony.

I didn’t usually trust when things got too good. In this life we lived, that usually meant that when the other shoe dropped, it would fall with a kick to the face that would leave you gasping and bleeding on the ground.  But this? Clem in my arms, my family safe and fed, warm and content in Daniel’s home, it was hard to imagine the world of shit that was waiting for me.

In sleep, Clem’s hand finally let go of mine. I curled around her, and yawned hard enough that my jaw popped.

I knew that things weren’t going to be perfect. I knew that while it might be nice that this island was isolated, it also meant that if we got in trouble we would be trapped. Time would only tell on that one. The fact that Daniel and Nathan had held out for so long was a tribute to their own skill. We were guests here, and as guests, we had to earn our way into something we could call ours.

But, God, I was so grateful for the chance to try.

All the people we had lost along the way had died to give us a chance. A chance at life, or a chance at living... my dad would call them the same thing.  I guess all we could do to say thank you was to _take_ that chance, live that life in the best way we knew how.

I listened to the house settling around me, sleep flirting just off in the distance and for the first time in a very, very long time, looked forward to seeing what the morning would bring.

Or at least... the afternoon.

 ****  


**THE END.**

(Completed, 13 September, 2015)

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **~Ridiculously long AN~**
> 
>  
> 
> As for the Amish- no of course I'm not an expert. I briefly lived near Arcola, Illinois while in college, and there was a mix of Amish and Mennonite people who lived there. I had a tire blow out while on a road in the middle of nowhere and some Amish men helped me with my tire and sent me on my way in seriously one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. I used that kind-heartedness with Daniel. I kind of had them adapt to the belief of non-violence, much like anyone else would have done to survive. _Obviously_ , I'm not trying to offend anyone's religion.
> 
> I do know that there is an Amish community on an island in Michigan, because I bought my weight in cheese and apple butter when I went to visit my grandma.  I just moved the community  to Ohio, because that’s where (I think) Wellington is.  As for the solar panels- yep. Some of the Amish in Ohio use solar energy, so much that in Ohio a lot of the local governments modeled their non-Amish environmental power after them. [So sayeth NPR](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10506342). See? You learned something today.
> 
> * * *
> 
> This story started out as a one shot, then someone asked to see Daryl's pov, then I continued it with Clem's, and finally Carl's. It's 221,838 words of a world that I love...erm. Perhaps a little too much. You might have noticed. 
> 
> **FoxyK** is my beta, who is a trooper for doing a readthru even tho this isn't her fandom. Any mistakes are mine, because I'm the type of person to fiddle after she's given it back.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I gotta give props to the crazy folks in the **RickylWritersGroup** who are the nicest bunch of people you could ever imagine. They helped when I was stuck(even though it's Clem and Carl!), and encouraged me when I was over it. Plus, they love Rickyl as much as I do, and it's nice to know we're all the same flavor of crazy.
> 
> * * *
> 
> I dedicated this to my best friend, **Jlm** , who prior to this _loathed_ anything having to do with a zombie apocalypse. She encouraged me when I was discouraged, convinced me continue even when my mother (who was a huge fan of Daryl Dixon, lemme tell you) died, and listened to me generally whine, moan, and bitch when I thought it was crap and no one would read this. I love you bb and I hope you like your "little" story.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Finally thanks guys, for taking a chance on a writer's first time playing in your fandom. I bastardized the comics and the show so much at this point that I'm almost ashamed of myself. Almost. I wanted to end the story in something like the _Telltale_ games, where you lose everyone that you love. Trust me, the Michonne part was agonizingly painful in several ways. I sincerely thank you for reading this, and for all the comments and kudos. On some days that was what made me get over myself and continue, even when my heart was heavy. 
> 
> xoxo  
> ~Lost

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for commenting and the concrit, either here or on [tumblr](http://1lostone.tumblr.com/)!!


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